For my monster's sake
by Angevelinka
Summary: Dead men tell no lies... if they are dead. Hokage and Kazekage raise their children on their own the best they can. One day Minato decides to help Sabaku family and invites them to Konoha. Can they all survive 4th's ideas and... winter? GaaNaruGaa fluff
1. Chapter One: Hey, hey, you, you

_AN: This is one of the major rp sessions I had with Panur and I must say I really enjoyed writing it. It contains a bit of everything, including fluff, angst, comfort and pain. Also, there's shonen ai and tad of yaoi included. Enjoy!^^_

Sometimes he didn't know what was there anymore. He slowly got up and caught his teddy by plushy hand and sat on a little step, staring at the rising sun with blind eyes. One more sleepless night… And the demon never stopped chanting a lullaby. He wanted to sleep.

White shorts and dark sandals styled differently from the standard Suna clothing appearing in his field of vision. They remained there for a second or two before their owned crouched down to join them.

'…are you crying?'

A blond kid with blue eyes smiled tentatively at Gaara.

#+#+#+#+#+#

It had been a full moon that night, which meant two things.

1) Namikaze Naruto (a child that normally could put a kindergarten class worth of kids let loose in a candy store to shame in terms of energy) had reached the apotheosis of excitement.

2) Hatake Kakashi, his designed bodyguard (a title that he had the feeling had only been given to him because 'babysitter' wasn't exactly fitting for an ANBU captain) had realized that no matter how much the unexpected needed to be expected, when said unexpected was a blond six year old, one simply wasn't ready.

In the moment it took him to blink, Naruto had disappeared. Kakashi, who hadn't slept the whole night, and had endured a three day trip in the desert with a optimistic and easily distracted Hokage sensei and a preschooler that insisted on doing his best to get lost in the desert and ingest cacti of dubious hallucinatory effects, considered early retirement. Or suicide.

Perhaps asking some of the locals what was the most potent tranquilizers at hand to douse the ramen the child ingested –Suna was famous for their poisons and concoctions, right?- call it a night and ride off into the sunset to live in some deserted mountain, only coming done to mingle with society every four years or so to get his new edition of his favorite lecture material. That was a nice dream, indeed. If only it weren't for the little detail he needed to be alive to be able to fulfill it… But one had to look at the bright side of things. His sensei was a sensible, just man. If he laid the facts in a bright light, he was sure the man might understand and leave him enough bones unbroken for him to crawl to the nearest hospital.

'Sensei, the good news is that I can now pay more attention to your brat because I finished the last volume of 'Icha icha'… the bad one is that I lost the brat while reading the last volume of 'Icha Icha'.' Lucky him, he wasn't that attached to his remaining eye. Or limbs. Thankfully the Hokage had only left a few hours ago, which meant he still had enough time to go through all of Suna until he found the brat, then hog-tie him to bed and take advantage of the fact Minato wasn't around to show him what a thousand years of pain was really about. He almost wished Shikaku was here. 'Troublesome' never sounded good enough when it didn`t come from a true Nara`s lips.

People stared at him, as he was a newcomer and newcomers never were really welcome in this deserted and cold village. But nobody really tried to help. He looked like a ninja. Ninjas were not to be bothered.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The redhead looked with no new mimic on his face as he watched the blond. Then, after a second or two he frowned, glaring at the newcomer. He hugged his teddy closer and got up from the step to march away to another step that was two meters away and sat with his back to the blond stranger, not saying anything. Another one was going to mock him? Most likely. But this time they'll get a mouthful of sand in their nose and ears. Right, teddy? Teddy nodded with his lack of movements.

The blond's face fell, his expression scrunching up in an offended pout and eyes closing into a strange fox-like expression.

'Hey, are you ignoring me?' He followed after the other, doubling until he was staring at the red-haired kid almost upside-down 'I'm talking to you!'

The redhead looked with no new mimic on his face as he watched the blond.

'Who are you?' he said after ten seconds of long and very stretched silence. 'I've never seen anyone wearing clothes like you before.' His eyes glinted with curiosity as he watched him, but he held his composure as his father always told him to hold on his emotions like a real ninja. And Gaara was a good boy, despite that his father always looked at him with disappointment. But now he probably would be very proud! He didn't even blush at the stranger! Father didn't like him doing that. Yes, Gaara was a good boy.

The blond smiled a bit more.

'I`m Namikaze Naruto. I'm from Konoha. It's a village across the desert…' He looked that around, first from one side, then the other, then pointed somewhere behind him. 'That way.'

He wasn't really sure it was that way they'd come from, but he was fairly certain the kid wouldn't know and he wanted to sound smart.

'My father is the Hokage, and I'm gonna be Hokage someday too!' maybe that wasn't the exact thing the redhead had asked for, but Naruto felt it was his duty to inform anyone he met who he was and what he would be someday when he got stronger than the current village leader.

'Hello, Namikaze Naruto.' The red haired kid smiled now a little, looking at him closer now, but he quickly hid behind an old ragged toy he was holding in his hands. 'I'm Gaara, Sabaku no Gaara. And that's Teddy. Say hello, Teddy.'

Small hand of the redhead took the plushy deformed paw of stuffed bear and waved it like if the toy said hello. Then he let it fall as he hugged it closer and eyed Naruto with interest now, his eyes glinting with unsure smile he still was a little afraid to show.

'You're not getting away from me?' he asked in a small voice, sternly but with a little, just a little add of fear that danced in his soul nonstop. Could it be that the kid was just mistaken and talked to him because he didn't know who he was? If that so, he'd start running away in any minute... or was it another mockery of kids that used to play bad on him? There was always so many and he never remembered all of them. It could be that one just borrowed some foreign clothes and made a little theatre here now. 'I won't hurt you, I swear...'

The blond grinned back and made a small waving gesture towards the little toy, his own stance relaxing inwardly. Back at home, almost no one wanted to play with him, except for Neji and Hinata-chan… He wasn't sure why, maybe they were scared because his dad was Hokage, but this kid didn't seem to mind… His words, however, were odd.

'Huh? Why would I run away? Why would you hurt me?' he asked confusedly, thinking if maybe he had breached some incredibly weird sort of etiquette that he wasn't in Suna… not that he had an idea of what etiquette was, but it seemed important when his father asked him to please try to behave…'Why are you crying?'

'Ah... it's nothing.' said the redhead and quickly cleaned his eyes with a fist, trying to make it look right. Maybe if he didn't tell, the kid will still be oblivious and will stay with him? Or maybe, maybe even... talk to him some more?... He couldn't tell him he was being abused by others, no, no way! The blond might think it's not okay to hang out with him, might think he is bad... 'Do you want to play with me?'

He thought quickly of possibilities he could offer, but they didn't come and Naruto could go away in any minute. He had to think quickly. 'Or... or... I have cookies in home, I can give you, Yashamaru never denies me when I ask for them, or we can play with Kankuro's dolls or I can show you something nice or... or...' He thought frantically but no ideas came to his head.

'...I can let you play with my teddy!' he uttered quickly, showing it in an offer. It had to be enough. He didn't know what else to do. How could he? He never met someone for that long... And Kankuro always took his teddy as he muttered it was his and that Gaara could destroy it if he wasn't careful. Teddies seemed to be a very valued item.

'Yes!' the blond nearly leaped at the offer, never having met someone that would ask him first if he wanted to play, it was always him approaching and the kids making some weird excuse and going away, looking at him funny. Cookies… cookies sounded good, but Yashamaru sounded like an adult, and those usually handed him right back to Kashi if they were present when he tried to approach their kids. And he wasn't that hungry yet, It was still early. The dolls sounded interesting too, especially because he didn't know what a Kankuro was, the only problem being.. 'Only girls play with dolls… right?'

Gaara looked at him, petrified that his offer was being denied in such subtle, but visible way.

'No! No!' he said quickly, shaking his head frantically 'My brother plays with them all the time! Not only girls! But if you don't want we can play a tag or with a ball or... or build sandcastles! I build great sandcastles!' Then, seeing that he almost hoped from his feet as he stood up he caught himself and stood straight and calm, like his father always taught him to and made a very serious face that he always saw when Kazekage had an important mission to do.

'Do you want to play sandcastles with me?' he asked politely, trying to look as serious as the matter he was asking about. Nobody, even his siblings didn't play in the sand with him, fearing the faces it made at them. But stranger didn't know that. Maybe he wouldn't be afraid?...

'Okay!' the blond asked just as brightly, deciding to overlook the strange mood swings this boy seemed to have. 'Maybe we can play tag when the sun comes down? It's too hot for that now… ' and it wasn't even ten in the morning… Sheesh, he felt like if he had been left with his face facing the oven… he hadn't really felt it the first day in the desert, excited as he was with the trip, but now… It wasn't that bad, it got really bad at home when summer got really hot and sticky sometimes, here it was just hot, but at least the air didn't feel like if it got stuck to your skin. 'Let's play sandcastles! How do you make sandcastles here? Your houses are all roundish and funny.'

'It's because they're real houses.' said Gaara, feeling surprised that the blond didn't know that. 'Aren't houses in your village round too?' Slowly he got up from the step he was sitting on and looked around. It was time of eating so nobody was there to tease him. Good. 'I'll show you.' he said, and made move like if he wanted to catch Naruto by hand, but stopped himself. 'Come with me.'

Then he turned around, but not fully, so he could still see Naruto and moved forward, to the place where he always could build what he wanted. Other kids got used to the fact that the biggest and the best sandbox was Gaara's sandbox and nobody dared to get close to it anymore. So he had all sand for himself.

'Nooo~' the blond elongated the world by giggling in the middle of it, following the redhead closely. 'They're square or really big, for departments and, um… like a tube, yes?' he illustrated the point by making a cylindrical mimic with his hand and extending it. 'Really tall, but those are all made of stairs and ledges, I don't know what for. There are also a lot of cables going around, but I don't know what they are for, either. I guess ninja just like it, because they're always running through them...'

Gaara watched the blond like if he was talking about something taken from another universe.

'We don't have cables.' he said after all and looked in front of himself. 'But we also have stairs. The longest are in the Kazekage's tower.' With that he pointed at a very high building in the middle of the town which seemed to be made of very unstable material, just like every other house in this place. Gaara watched it, not feeling proud or curious. To him it always looked the same. He slowly turned the corner to the playground where no kids were playing at such hour and jumped into the sandbox with grace, like he usually did. Ah, his usual sand toys were left the way he used them last time. Good.

'Here.' he said, giving the blond shining shovel and sitting in the middle of the square. The sand under his feet swirled and straightened like a blanket so he was now sitting on a very plain surface.

The blond squeaked, and nearly tackled the redhead off the spot he was in. He had just SEEN the thing move all alone!

'Gaarathesandisalive!' Enemy ninja? Jutsu? Assassins?

Gaara blinked at the sudden intrusion of his personal space and blushed a little at the new feelings. But then he looked at the sand which slowly formed the grinning face of his inner raccoon and looked at Naruto. He was, in the end, just like any other kid. He saddened.

'It's my mom.' he said, looking as the sand grinned wider, then vanished, leaving the surface as plain as it was. 'The sand listens to me.'

The blond squeaked again and pulled back, kind of hiding behind the redhead… but then turned and stared at him with huge blue eyes at the boy's information. 'Gaara…'

Gaara cringed. He knew that tone very well. He held his breath to not scream from frustration at what was going to happen next and he searched frantically through sand to find something, anything valuable that could change the topic, but he didn't find any. 'We... we can go play with teddy?' he asked with desperation, holding onto his toy with his dear life. Really, he didn't have anything else to offer. For the first time he felt that maybe money weren't as unimportant as he thought they were.

The blond didn't seem to listen.

'Gaara… your mom is huge.'

The redhead stared at Naruto, then frowned, looking at the sand that smiled at them again, showing pointy teeth in a toothy grin as it travelled through the whole sandbox lazily, like a fish in aquarium. 'No, she isn't.' he said, then he left the toy on the ground and moved his hands. The sand slowly advanced, taking the whole content of sandbox up and creating a big shape of the beast that was as high as half of the high tree. Someone in the house nearby screamed, but Gaara held the figure up. The bits of sand that covered something that probably was supposed to be tail, but it seemed there wasn't enough of material for it, waged just as lazily as the smile ventured before.

'She is even bigger.' he said. When another scream could be heard, he let go of the sand and let it fall down in dusty thud. The sand hit both of them, but it seemed that Gaara was not even moved by the fact it was getting to his nose or eyes - like if it was completely natural. 'I could show you, but we'd have to go out of the town.'

Naruto hacked and couched dramatically, little fists rubbing the sand off his face and eyes, then blew a raspberry to get what he could off his mouth, which had been gaping open. 'Nah, it's ok, I don't think she likes me…'

He didn't really like her much, either. Gaara's mom didn't look nice, actually, she looked hungry, and for him. Things with teeth that pointy ate meat, even if, as far as he could tell, she didn't have the things inside you needed to digest stuff. That probably didn't matter, as there technically wasn't any brains in the sand, either, so she probably wouldn't know that and try to eat him anyway. 'You don't look like her, do you look like your dad? Everyone says I look like daddy. But he says my eyes are like my mom`s. '

Gaara blinked, looking at him. Naruto looked like both of his parents? He crept closer to see the eyes, but he didn't find anything specific in them as he didn't know how the blond's mom looked like. Like father but with his mother's eyes!... Strange!...

'I do not.' he said, shaking his head and getting into his sandbox again, his teddy forgotten on the ground 'I look only like my mother. Everyone keeps saying that.' Well, maybe not like his mother from the picture he saw in Yashamaru's room, but everyone said he was a 'monster' so he had to be very similar to the animal his mother represented in his head. He didn't saw it when he looked into the mirror, but what was strange after all? Every kid looked a bit like its mother and even if he didn't see where it was the others probably did so he was no one to argue. It's not like he got a lot of things that happened around him yet.

'I don't think you look like her at all!' blond complained, still trying to rub at his eyes. He made an annoyed noise when he couldn't finish taking the annoying grains off his eyes.

'Then you're a very strange being.' said Gaara with seriousness and grabbed the shovel, wondering where to dig first. Smile ventured further from him and sat in the corner, looking at the blond with interest. After a moment Gaara decided to look at him too. What could have interested the face so much in the kid?...

'I'm not strange!' the blond complained again, giving Gaara as much of a dirty look as you could with teary eyes. He rubbed at them harder, feeling the scratchy things going all over them except out, which was where he needed them. 'I'm so, sooooo so sososo normal you`d- heeeeey—Gha!'

Ah, he was having troubles taking the sand out of his eyes. Gaara didn't understand that as he always had some grains in his own, but it seemed that people were too sensitive to little bits of earth. Or was it possible that sand didn't always just slid barely on the surface of the eye? All in all, the blond seemed to be inclined into pushing them into his own as he touched his eyes again and again. That had to hurt. 'Don't rub them.' he muttered and got out of the sandbox yet again to bend over Naruto's face as he held his hands to stop them coming into the way.

Ah, there they were. Six in one eye and two in the other. He clapped his hand s over the blue orbs and removed them, feeling like the sand moved with his hands. then he let go of it. 'Here.' he said with a shrug and stepped aside to take his forgotten toy in his arms. Teddy was always inclined into getting lost. He really had to be careful with him.

Stuff! Stuff came out of his eyes! He would have started panicking if he hadn't realized that after whatever was gone, his eyes stopped stinging. He blinked cautiously, fully expecting more of the tiny glass-like feeling going over his eyes, and smiled widely when he felt them feeling even better than before.

'That's so cool! How did you do that?' He followed the redhead, nearly knocking him over in his enthusiasm. How had Gaara done that? He hadn't seen him use a hand seal, maybe it was too fast? Sure, he hadn't seen it, but he had been busy trying to look into his own eyes, not at his hands…

'Is it like a jutsu? A bloodline limit? My friends have those and they can see through your skin with it—Well, Neji can, but Hinata-chan is too little still, but it's really cool, their eyes go all like fshwaaa- and then they get stuff like pupils and get all veiny all around here-' he gesture at the soft skin around his eyes, following to his temples, then started giggling. 'And-and I always wondered how it looks in old people because they are all wrinkly, so I don't know how the veins would look on them- I bet it's really funny- cause- cause they all ones always have this seeeeeeriuous faces-!'

'Old people are always serious.' The redhead responded as he turned his face toward the sand. The face still laughed at him quietly, the only one from days. Sometimes his brother and sister did. But besides that he rarely saw anyone giving him a smile. And Yashamaru didn't count. Yashamaru was a completely different being. His closest friend. Friends always smiled at each other. He looked at the blond and gave off a very small timid smile. Like that... or so. He wasn't very good at this.

'And I don't have veins in my eyes... I do it because I want to.' With that he pointed his finger at the sand and it jumped, forming a wavy little hand. Then he fisted it as it squinted and fell down. 'It's not a jutsu. I just can.' The face beside him opened his mouth in a wider smile which roared in his head with a booming laughter, and his head only. He learned that he was the only one to hear it some time ago so he usually ignored it.

'You must have interesting friends.'

'Neji is really cool, and Hinata-chan is very nice, but I don't see them very often, their family is always busy… So you don't waste charka when you do it?' the blond sounded amazed. He frowned, looking deep in thought, before smiling brightly. 'I can walk on trees! Kashi taught me how to do so, but he says I'm bad at it. I waste too much charka.' Which wasn't fair at all, because he had a lot of charka to waste, so it was okay for him to use more than it really required, right?

'It's chakra.' said Gaara, correcting the blond. Then he looked at his own hands, pondering. He had to use his chakra to move the sand and yet, he didn't do it. His mother always let him use some of her own. He looked at the blond again.

'It's important to use as little as possible. I can't walk on trees.' he murmured, feeling ashamed at the fact that he actually couldn't do something. But sand always heaved him down and all his efforts were laughed at by Kankuro who had no problem with it at all and he actually got on top of the tree with first try. Temari always said he had to train it somewhere before but as he tracked his brother many times he never saw him doing that. Though Kankuro usually liked getting things from affair by gluing blueish strings of chakra to it. Maybe that was the key? But he couldn't do that also.

'I'm a weak ninja.' he said after all with sigh and meddled with sand a bit as it jumped, almost like if it wanted play a tag 'And we don't have many trees to exercise on...' They usually walked on special walls and marked their efforts with paint. At the first try he almost sprayed whole paint on himself as the sand suddenly weighted him down and didn't protect him from the cause. Mother thought it was funny, just as Kankuro did, but he didn't and actually even cried a bit. His marks were always the lowest from whole family. Even grandma Chiyo seemed disappointed. 'Why is their family so busy?'

His imagination showed him his father sitting in his chair, reading something. Stupid question, fathers were always busy. But whole families? Grandma Chiyo sometimes let him sit with her as she sat near the small lake in her house. But it was always fish-less and the situation never changed so he didn't go there very often.

Naruto looked confused.

'But you are my age?' he closed his eyes, making a thoughtful expression. 'Daddy said only genins learn to walk on tress, so you shouldn't even try until you finish academy and learn some techniques…' Some of which were still a mystery, thanks to the fact that Kashi only ever taught him whatever he wanted to teach him whenever he felt like it… which usually was after hours of pestering.

'…I want to learn to walk on water…' he'd seen his father fighting on a river once, as he helped Kashi with a new technique, and he had been amazed at the fact they could run on it as if it were land. He stared at the redhead, not missing the saddened expression. 'I can try to teach you, if you want? I'm not really good at it, but I can tell you how I do it!' But would Gaara have enough chakra for it?

…maybe he should have listened to grandpa and asked Ebisu to teach him about chakra control, but the man was so boring, and he always looked at him funny, and he hated that. 'Oh… their family is really important. They started Konoha, I think…? Anyway, they're always training and stuff, I wish I could train that much, but daddy says I need to wait for the academy.'

Gaara looked at Naruto with unsure stare. Could such a little boy know how to help him - him, whom his own father could not train properly? True, the Kazekage tried to teach him only once and resigned only after his first failure as he seemed to be pressured by someone about the 'Red Moon' matter, but still...

But he nodded, hoping that if anything, they might at least have some fun. It wasn't like if he spent his days with anyone after all. 'I'll show you the ground.' he said and hopped out of the sandbox, taking the teddy and waving off the smiling face which crumbled into the nothing as he trailed away.

'It doesn't matter if I'm genin or not.' he said quietly, fondling with the plushy paws of his toy. Stuffed bear seemed to dance in his arms almost like if it was alive. But he never got it as good as Kankuro did. 'Father always wanted us to train, the earlier the better. Grandma Chiyo and grandpa Ebizo wanted us to train too.' True, that. Grandma Chiyo seemed to favor Kankuro though, just as Grandpa liked Temari better. Gaara liked to think it was because their abilities matched, but it seemed it was because he was simply unable to be taught anything decent. His abilities to control sand were unknown to any of them, and even his father, who tried with his all knowledge seemed to be powerless. All Gaara could was teach himself.

And how could you teach yourself when you didn't know what are you being taught of? Yashamaru always said it's a matter of creativity. His desert coffins were feared, but it was just dull and probably it wouldn't help him on a battlefield. And water? His sand hardly even let him get close to water once he accidentally tripped to the river in the land of Waves. It was the last time his mother just let him wander around and the last time his father actually took him anywhere. Though maybe it has something to do with the fact that, supposedly playing a 'strong hero' in a role his father told him to play, he just fell into the water and almost drowned as other Kages just looked at him with distaste... It seemed like if he made his father unhappy, but didn't know why.

It wasn't his fault that sand was so heavy after all.

'Here we are.' he said and stopped before a tall wall that shone in the backyard of big house of Kazekage 'Paint is standing in the shadows.' He looked at Naruto and waited. What could the blond do now? Could he really walk on vertical lines as he said himself? But he knew some important family. So maybe he wasn't as untrustworthy as he seemed to be.

'Really? That's cool, my dad doesn't want me to train too hard… ' Naruto often felt his dad worried too much about what he did. The day he learned to walk on trees he'd been so tired Kashi had to carry him home and later he'd heard his father talking a lot with Kashi, and not sounding happy at all. Luckily Kashi never took his dad seriously when he got like that, and Minato usually apologized afterwards, so… 'Ehhh, we don't need paint for anything, do we?' he asked, staring at the marks on the wall.

'I need to know what you can do with it first, we don't need to measure it.' He approached the wall, touching it with his fingers curiously. It was harsh and grainy, which was actually better. It was always harder to stick to smooth surfaces the first times. 'Okay, this looks good. How do you try it?'

Gaara shrugged as he tucked his teddy in the shadow, telling it to stay still and not to move anywhere as he went training. Teddy never moved, but who knew. Maybe there will be time he'd forget and wander off somewhere like he himself usually did. It never hurt to remind him about it. '...and don't kill people.' he said with all seriousness, repeating what usually Yashamaru told him when waving him off, then he turned to Naruto.

'I just walk on it.' he said, then he got close to the wall and touched it with hands to add some chakra and glue himself to it. Then he jumped and touched the wall with his legs, staying in such position for a few seconds when earth tugged sharply on him and his weight. Then he slowly let go of his hands and moved forward. One step. Two. Three. The further form earth he was the harder it got. Slowly and invisibly, the sand from earth was coming to him and tucking on his backside as he heard the murmur of mother inside his head. The further he got the more sand he needed to be safe once he fell. So after eleventh step he actually had whole gourd on his back that weighted more than he did.

And nothing stopped Shukaku from doing that. He breathed through his nose as he made one more step, feeling the sharp tug of gravity as more sand was added and he yelped at the thirteenth step. That was it. His record was fifteen steps on a wall that any normal kid could walk twenty steps without even sweating over. The sand pulled on him again, adding more pressure and his legs let go as he fell down, head first. And there was a lot of dust everywhere again as he got up.

He couldn't land on his feet like ninja too. The sand always made him fall on his back as it moved when he touched it with his feet. 'That's it.' he said with saddened face, seeing as the sand wavered away on the ground.

Naruto was staring at him with his mouth gaping open. Slowly, he approached the redhead and the newly formed gourd, eyeing it as one would do a suspicious animal and walking around a few times. After some more staring, he moved closer and cautiously pressed an ear against the gourd. 'It's breathing…?'

'It's mom.' said Gaara, as he got up and patted the gourd so it wouldn't attack Naruto out of sudden. 'She wants me to be safe.' And she always did, no matter what he told her. She just watched him and nodded but never really agreed to doing what he asked of her. 'I know what I'm doing.' she said once 'You don't need that ability at all.' And then the sand under his steps moved and formed stars that lead to the top of the wall but he stubbornly refused using them. That was too easy and he didn't want to cheat. He wanted to be a ninja, not a cheater. The same was when Shukaku offered him levitating on sand or even teleporting him up.

'That's not like ninja at all!' he muttered while Shukaku said that's exactly like ninja and a very good ninja. But once he did it in neighborhood everyone seemed to have a panic fit like in old horror movies, some even screamed like in those. His father probably wouldn't approve of such abilities and neither would grandpa and grandma. World of ninjas was a harsh one.

'Your mom lives inside?' he asked, knocking on it a bit, then turning and sniffing it. That odd smell was even stronger up close. It wasn't very nice, but he kind of felt like if he liked it… 'Daddy wants me to be safe too, but if I don't learn and sometime he isn't there to help me, I need to take care of myself, right?' He gave the gourd an experimental push, eyes widening when the large thing barely budged. And Gaara had been carrying it around all day as if nothing? No wonder Gaara couldn't get far at all! 'Your mom's too big for you to carry her, tell her to stay down until you can do it right.'

The gourd twitched and for a moment the face from a sandbox revealed itself, smiling at Naruto like before and then it vanished. 'I told her.' said Gaara with shrug. 'But she doesn't listen. She says she knows what she is doing. See?' He got up and ran to the wall, doing three quick steps before the sand actually got to him and made it to eight before the gourd has reincarnated on his back again. His muscles gave out quicker this time as he just let himself fall, trying to do a hop on feet, but the sand was under his feet again and he fell flat on his face.

'Father said that I had to be stronger than that, but I don't know how to do it. And no, I told you I don't want to fly up.' he said out loud to the sand as it moved, getting him up from the ground on barely a few centimeters, then fell down at his words. 'That's cheating.'

Naruto frowned at the face, mouth pulling back to reveal sharp little teeth before he even realized what it was doing. He took several steps back, and helped Gaara back to his feet. 'Can't you make the sand keep your mom down?'

'No, because my mom is the sand.' the redhead said as he dusted himself off and looked at the grains. The said sand seemed to be now trailing after Naruto, the smiling face showing again and again, golden eyes peaking at him with curiosity as it held the distance but circled him around. 'She seems to be fond of you though.'

Naruto made a face, not looking exactly thrilled about the other's comment, but said nothing about it. It wouldn't be very polite to tell Gaara or his mother than he didn't like her at all and that whenever she smiled at him it reminded him of the wolf in Little Red Riding hood and made him want to scratch her.

And his nails were getting sharp from it. 'Thanks,' he muttered, scratching a whiskered cheek as he pondered a solution that would help his friend. 'Hmm… and if I help you?'

Gaara shrugged, looking at Naruto helplessly. Nobody really wanted to 'help' him as everyone seemed to be a little appalled by the fact he got heavier and more covered in sand with every step. His father once tried removing it and it snapped at him. He didn't try anything anymore. 'I don't know, maybe it would help.' he said as the sand advanced from the floor in a grotesque slim shape and simply rocked lightly on the wind above Naruto, watching him with curious eyes and smiling with wide smile that echoed in his head like if his mother was 'giggling' or was just 'too happy' and couldn't contain the laughter in herself.

Naruto scratched the back of his head some more, trying to ignore Gaara's mother hovering over him. Figures the one parents that seemed to like him would be the creepiest one he'd met. 'See, my daddy doesn't want me doing dangerous stuff and always thinks if I'm alone I'm doing something dangerous, but he lets me go out and stuff if Kashi comes with me.' He explained, trying to reason out a way to get everything to work out. '…so maybe your mom tries to make you stay to be safe? So if you aren't doing anything dangerous, she won't try to stop you!'

Looking at the wall a moment, Naruto pulled his hands in the needed hand seal and took a deep breath to gather the chakra on his feet, after which he ran to it and easily climbed up to about the same height Gaara had, taking a moment to adjust. It was easier on the wall than on the tree, actually, the coarse brick didn't break as easily as bark, and he never seemed to be able to adjust without trying it a few times. The blond walked a few moments around to make sure he had a proper grasp, and then walked a little lower, smiling at the redhead and extended a hand. 'Tell your mom I'll help you and to stay down, I won't let you fall.'

Gaara nodded and walked to the gourd, whispering to it as he always did: I will be safe, he will hold me, I'm not going to fall, I want to learn, I want to, please... The lazy figure in his mind nodded, looking at him.

'Sure you do.' it said in a mocking tone, then it widened its eyes and looked at the blond through his eyes. It seemed that his mother was more distracted by the kid now instead of helping him. No wonder since he never met anyone. it's been something new to both of them. He grasped the wall with his hands and jumped up, touching the wall with his feet as he did before. The sand stirred, looking at them from the ground, but didn't do anything yet. He took three steps and he still didn't feel anything, though the gourd had rolled itself closer to the wall now.

'She doesn't trust you.' he said, extending his hands up. And maybe also he shouldn't if she didn't, but he completely saw no reason behind it. If course, it was a little strange boy and that should have alarmed him, but he just wanted to have friend for one day at least so he tried to ignore the signals. Five steps. The sand started crawling up the wall.

Naruto arrived to a conclusion faster than the sand. He'd only advanced three steps with Gaara before he voiced it. 'This isn't gonna work.' he said, giggling a little. Not because he couldn't take Gaara's weight, at all. Maybe he couldn't carry around giant jars of dirt like if they were pillows, but Gaara wasn't that heavy, and if he used chakra, he was pretty sure he could… But exactly because like this it was hard for them both to gauge to both advance and regulate how much chakra they were using. If he pulled Gaara, then he wouldn't be using the right amount of it, and even if she slackened the hold, it`d be uncomfortable.

'I need to let go of you, but then how can weee…' the blond eyed around, trying to find something that could be used to help, before suddenly brightening. 'I know!'

Running down the wall, he ran to the guard and after quickly informing Gaara's mom he would be borrowing it, he took the sash that Gaara used to keep the gourd strapped to his back. 'Look, look, let`s do it like this!'

Running back to place, he fastened one end of the long piece of fabric around the redhead's waist, then the other end to his own and ran back up until the was little left of the material loose.

'That way you can do it alone and I can catch you if you fall!' Naruto grinned, adjusting so he was crouching against the wall, so he could have more surface to keep himself glued to the wall. 'Tell her not to worry, I'm stronger than what I look.' He said, grinning.

Gaara nodded as he redirected those words to Shukaku. The sand didn't back off, but it also didn't come closer, hovering just under Gaara, as it followed Naruto after he took the redhead's scarf. So far everything seemed to work. Maybe the blond wasn't as childish as he looked like to be?...

'Here I go.' he whispered under his nose as he caught the scarf with strong grip and eyed the sand under him. Without it gluing his skin it seemed to be much easier though. He stepped forward a few more steps, getting closer to the middle of the wall and looked down. it seemed that the street was getting nervous now and the sand slowly gathered from all corners under him. And it didn't look good at all. He looked at the windows of his own house. Nobody seemed to notice anything yet. He took another two steps forward. The smiling face swirled above him and looked at them with tentative gaze.

'Gaara~' the blond said, good humouredly. 'Calm down. If you get nervous it doesn't work. Just um... Imagine the chakra gluing your shoes to the wall, it helps!' He didn't like the sand mother surrounding him from all parts, but it wasn't like if he could do anything about it. Gaara had managed two or three steps over what he`d done last time.

Gaara nodded, gulping down some saliva that seemed to linger in his mouth and moved forward yet again. My shoes are glued to the wall... My shoes are glued to the wall!...

Step, step, step, the sand below him was getting now louder and even bigger as he heard it but he didn't dare to turn around and actually see what was happening. He saw the end of the wall getting near and he decided to just push forward. The smiling face slowly stopped smiling as it travelled with him, its smile melting. Now he was watched by a pair of blackish yellowish eyes only and he felt the tension growing on the back of his mind. Shukaku seemed to remember about something...

Step, step, step. The blond boy was sure encouraging and he really helped him there, though it seemed that he helped both of them as the sand didn't weight them down as he was being assured with the scarf. Step, step, step, almost there, almost at the top!... The sun shone brightly as the sand roared and a lot of big paws shot upwards, getting steady on top of it. Gaara saw it many times as he steered it so he didn't back off. But when he was almost, almost touching the top...

'What the hell is going on here?'

His foot has slipped.

His waist tugged on the scarf harshly, the sand from below getting up and covering him immediately, weighting so much more- He glanced down. He never saw so much sand around him- And it was AROUND HIM-

True to his promise, Naruto did catch Gaara when he fell. He even managed to hold onto him as the sand covered him – it took a flare of chakra and he skidded his palms when he pressed them flat on the wall to break the fall- but when the scarf broke, the sudden lack of weight made him lose control and concentration.

The scarf torn off under the weight, also pulling the blond boy and taking them both down.

'Release!' could be heard as the sand suddenly dissolved, unsure, drifting off, just as it was told. Not touching father. And he was now held under an arm like a purse and in the other was Naruto, while his father looked at him, furious and disappointed and jumped off the wall on the steady ground, letting go of both of them.

'Why do you always have to cause troubles?' the Kazekage murmured through his clenched teeth. 'You make me feel so ashamed!'

Gaara winced at the sentence and looked around quickly. A lot of people was standing by, watching them now. He caused a ruckus yet again.

'...sorry.' he muttered, glancing at Naruto with sorrowful glare 'I didn't mean to.'

It took a moment for Naruto to gather his bearings and understand what the man had said, before glaring up at him.

'Hey! Gaara didn't do anything, why are you scolding him?' he squirmed against the larger man until he was released, catching himself clumsily and falling on one knee instead of his face, for once. Getting back to his feet, he put one hand on his waist and pointed at the older man accusingly. 'He would have done perfectly well if you hadn't interrupted, so put him down and apologize!'

The crowd nearly gasped as everyone held their breath in silence. For a few seconds only a sand rustling on the street and getting blown by wind in every direction could be heard. The older male looked at the blond with steely glare as something akin to surprise struck in his eyes for once. But it vanished very quickly when he observed the foreigner in that position.

'Gaara.' he said in a stone cold voice, slowly turning his head toward the redhead 'We're going home. Now.'

The crowd moved and scattered quickly as he shot it a superior glare and Gaara winced again as the big, vaguely warm, but not loving hand grasped his own with a sharp tug and pulled him to move with him.

'Sorry' he said weakly, shooting the blond a glance above his shoulder, but he was pulled again and he had to look forward to not trip. Father did what could be known as eternal damnation in this village - ignored his opponent completely. 'Good that Naruto is not from this village.' he thought to himself sourly. 'Too bad that I am.' Who knows, maybe if he was born in that Konoha the blond was talking about, he wouldn't get so scolded - just as here?...

Naruto jumped, not having expected everyone and the man to just leave without an answer and bit his lip, trying to think of something he could do. Gaara wasn't fighting this person and he knew his name, so he wasn't a stranger, so it couldn't be anything bad, but, the way Gaara had looked at him was so unsettling, and…

'Wait, wait!' he ran after the pair and caught the redhead by his free hand, wrapping both hands around it, looking up at the brunette with his most convincing pleading expression. 'We weren't doing anything bad, just training! Please let Gaara stay with me, I promise I won't let him get in trouble!'

The Kazekage didn't stop, moving them forward, but his head turned to the blond with the terrifying astonishment, pure outrage shining from his eyes. How is that possible this was happening? He raised his eyebrows even more as he looked at the blond though. The similarity couldn't be missed. And the clothes... of course, they were different.

Minato's kid. 'Staying with Kakashi' my arse since he didn't see the young ninja anywhere. But maybe he was mistaken?...

'Is getting away from your nanny when he isn't looking 'not doing anything bad'?' he asked with low, almost saccharine sweet tone, but at the same time he tugged on Gaara sharply. The redhead yelped, but let himself be dragged and the sand didn't do a thing to him, but the grip of the blond has been almost severed. Good thing, that parent's authority. 'He already IS in trouble, if you haven't noticed. And so are you... Naruto, if I'm not mistaken.'

The blond flinched, eyes narrowing suspiciously as he blushed, feeling like if he had been caught with his hand on the cookie jar. Yes, technically he shouldn`t have left the room until his father came back from the meeting, but he`d been so excited and restless they couldn`t really expect him to just stay there, right? He hadn't before and well, it was Kashi`s fault for not paying more attention to him and getting distracted with pervy stuff and... How did this man know.

'...Yes, am Namikaze Naruto.' he said, staring at the older man with narrowed eyes. 'And why should we be in trouble? We were just playing. And Gaara was doing fine.' The fact that he thought that the redhead had failed because of this older man didn`t need to be repeated out loud for him to know that`s exactly what the blond felt.

Kazekage snorted under his nose. Fine. Yes, they were doing just f i n e. Especially Gaara and Shukaku now.

'I don't know what you consider 'fine' he said out loud as his grip on Gaara's hand grew in strength. The redhead whimpered as the sand rustled, cracking under his palm. Probably he made it a little too strong but he didn't really care. 'But what's happened couldn't be considered 'playing'. Have I not told you to not enter the backyard without my permission?'

The redhead cringed a bit, but he didn't say anything. Actually, he had forgotten.

'And as for you, Namikaze Naruto' the older man sneered, looking at him 'I am Kazekage of Sunagakure, Sabaku no Daichi. Don't think only because you're your mother's son you have any rights to disobey me here.' With those words he opened the doors to his house and pushed Gaara inside. Not even the door started closing as he caught Naruto by his t-shirt's collar and lifted him up so he could carry him like a little kitten. 'You stay here.' he informed Gaara. The redhead nodded and hugged himself since the toy was left outside 'And you're going with me. Your father will be probably very happy to see you causing troubles in the back of my mansion.'

The blond's eyes widened as he hear the man's title, then made a face, because if there was one person in the whole of the village he shouldn't talk back to, that was the Kazekage… And what did he mean about being his mother's son. Of course he was, who else's son could he be? He stared after Gaara as the Kazekage pretty much pushed him inside, but he couldn't do much else before being caught by the back of his shirt and being lifted off the ground.

'Hey-, what? Put me down, I can walk on my own!' He flailed some more, but when that proved fruitless –he couldn't exactly bite the Kazekage- he just slumped on the hold and attempted to look as dignified as a person being dragged by the scruff of the shirt could. Which wasn't much, really.

The Kazekage didn't even flinch as Naruto struggled, so his pace was not disturbed as he advanced on the stairs, not fastening but not slowing himself either. Naruto pouted. The Kazekage dragged him through what felt was the most endless set of stairs from endless stairs Country

After four agonizing minutes, he reached his office.

'One would think I should knock...' he muttered to himself as he glanced at Naruto. Knowing Namikaze senior, Minato would be doing who knows what just right now. 'But on the other hand... no.' A smirk graced his face as he pushed the door, dangling Naruto up like a little toy and spoke up:

'I'm sorry for interrupting you, but I believe that I found something troublesome in the back of my yard and I believe that in some way it might belong to you.'

'Daichi-kun, good thing you are back-'

The taller blond was still frowning slightly at the scroll in his hands. Konoha's Hokage hadn't been in Suna for over seven years, when he had been invited to the Kazekage´s wedding. A few years later the Leaf had been attacked by the strongest Bijuu, the Nine-tailed fox, after which he had completely stopped attending summits, placing one excuse after another as to why he couldn't leave his village. As it was, now that proper treaties were severely past due, Minato hadn't so much as extended a hand to greet his fellow Kage before the brunette slumped his arms with a load of paperwork he apparently expected him to go through before the meeting was interrupted for lunch. At the moment he arrived, the Hokage had been going through an intelligence report on the borders of Wind country that stated that shinobi wearing Konoha headbands has been seen at the site.

'I checked in our scrolls and none of our shinobi was assigned to that area, have you -?' Dark teal eyes looked up to direct the question and blinked at the sight of his only child dangling unamusedly from the Kazekage's grasp. '…Naru-chan?'

The little boy made a vague waving gesture in his direction, and Minato's eyes narrowed when he recognized the blond's expression as one any parent would: 'I did something bad and you are going to find out what.'

'What are you doing here? I told you to stay in your room… Where is Kakashi-kun?'

Kazekage smirked at those words as he ungracefully let go of Naruto and let him hit the ground as he stood aside, his hands on his hips. 'If you're talking about Hatake's son, I haven't seen him anywhere. And you kid was playing on the backyard of my home so I guess it's quite far away from the hotel you said you will be staying in.' he said unamusedly, then clapped his hands like if Naruto was dirty. 'Please, keep your brat under control, Gaara had almost killed him.'

The kid shot the brunette a dirty look and got back to his feet, making a show out of straightening his shirt, only to stop and point at the Kazekage glaring fiercely. 'That's a lie, don't believe him, daddy, we were just pla-!'

'Killed him?' Like most parents, Minato only heard the parts that interested him. Gaara. Daichi`s Gaara. The same Gaara that apparently was vessel to Suna's demented sand demon, Shukaku. 'Naruto, what were you doing?'

The blond winced, perfectly aware of what that tone meant. Dad was about to get into drama mood. 'We were playing… training! We just-'

'Training with Sabaku no Gaara?' Minato was next to his son and checking for missing limbs and broken bones in less than a second.

'Where is Kakashi-kun?'

'Eer…'

'You ran out of him again? Naruto I told you to stay in your room-'

'I've been there since yesterday, and I was bored, you can't just leave me there and forget-' l, my Gaara caught him and almost killed him on the way.

'I didn't forget! I left you there because you always get in trouble if unsupervised-'

'I don't get in trouble, I-'

'You weren't here for twenty minutes and already found one of the deadliest spiders on the world!'

'It got into my backpack, how's that my fault?' On the bright side, elder Chiyo had been very happy of the spider his son had found, considering how rare it was. Minato had been less than thrilled when his only son had pulled at his pants leg and showed him the fist-sized bug wriggling helplessly in the bare grip of his only son as he asked if they could keep it.

It really wasn't, but one couldn't help but think it was… Naruto just happened to be a natural magnet for trouble, despite his best attempts to keep him unharmed. Figures that if he happened to look away for one second he'd try to challenge the deadliest weapon of Suna. Minato groaned and covered his hand. 'I should have left you in Konoha...'

He actually had intended to. Naruto had been a last minute additive to the trip- after so many years he couldn't keep pushing meetings with other Kages, so he had intended to leave Naruto with Kakashi and Sarutobi to take care of him in his place. He'd almost made it to the outskirts of Fire country before having a parental hunch that told him that if left alone Naruto would surely do something suicidal and he practically ran back to Konoha expecting to find his baby in his deathbed. He found instead Kakashi and his boy waiting at the gates with their luggage already made.

'I'm impressed sensei. I didn't think you'd last so long,' his student had told him, and Minato decided to ignore the jab and further son-complex-related comment in favor of squeezing his baby and promising he'd never, ever leave him alone again. Maybe Naruto would have been safer if he'd left him in Konoha, but Minato always seemed to end up having a panic attack at the thought f something happening to Naruto in his absence. It was stupid, he couldn't protect him from everything, and yet…

'Daddy, Gaara and I were just playing, he didn't try to kill me or anything, I was just telling Gaara how to climb up walls and then he came' more pointing at the Kazekage. 'and ruined everything and scolded Gaara and dragged me here and we didn't do anything!'

'Gaara is not a boy who just plays or can be trained like any other. He can't climb walls and his sands gets murderous when you try to pull that on him. I saved him in the nick of time.' said the Kazekage and opened the door 'I'm sorry for the inconvenience but I believe I can't save him from entering Gaara's playground every time he dares to go in there. Gaara! Come here!'

Naruto pulled out of his father's grasp to point some more at the older man, somehow evading the Hokage from grabbing him again.

'That's a lie!'

The quick steps could be heard and soon there was a little boy with red hair standing in the doorway, peaking at them with vigilance. 'What have I told you about training?'

'That I can't do it unless I'm with someone older.'

'And what you just did?'

The redhead looked at his toes, the sand on his skin ruffling with uneasiness.

'You could've killed you both.'

'I'm sorry.' The Kazekage frowned, then slapped the back for redhead's scalp, making Gaara cringe and the sand hiss even quicker.

'I didn't hear you!'

'I'm sorry!' said the redhead almost roaring, as the sand got up from the floor and fell down with a loud splat.

'Now get out of here and don't you dare to go out of your room.'

'Gaara can climb walls fine, and he would have been all right if you hadn't scared him and the sand didn't do anything to me and it didn't feel like if it wanted to hurt me at all!'

'Namikaze Naruto!'

The blond flinched and turned to his father with a fierce pout.

'But it's true, dad… It likes me and all! Right, Gaara?'

Minato stared at the redhead standing next to his father, a little surprised about how much like Daichi the boy looked, but especially about the fact he really wasn't what he had imagined him to be. Then again, did Naruto look like he houses a murderous beast inside of his body? Besides, Naruto was very sensitive to killing instinct… and he knew better than anyone how strong those of a possessed medium could be. That Naruto thought the sand liked him, however, wasn't exactly reassuring.

'The sand... uh... the sand...' The redhead seemed flustered and suddenly started stepping from one foot to another,pulling at his shirt like if it was a flower and basking his eyes everywhere, looking at Kazekage a few times and paling every time because the older man seemed to become more and more annoyed with every glance Gaara threw him. 'The sand...' then he looked at Minato and caught his worried stare. It wasn't that he saw many new faces around lately so he decided to keep up with it and remember as much as he could in his situation. 'The sand is... curious. Mom seems to be-'

The speech was cut off as the Kazekage hit the redhead on the back of his head. 'What the heck did I just say.' could be heard in dangerous, low tone that promised nothing but upcoming sandstorm. 'Go to your room and not go out of it. And don't you dare to say those stupidities about your own mother again!'

Gaara cringed and shut his mouth, actually tearing his shirt and letting it go in the process. He caught one more the stare of new blond man and let it go, feeling ashamed for what he did. Then he slowly moved away from his father, hesitating. He didn't want to leave room yet, but his father was seething mad now and it was the best to not disobey his commands now.

Naruto cried indignantly at the hit and he would have done something if Minato hadn't caught him and held him on place, cutting out his protests at the same time.

'But da-'

'Naruto.' The blond looked down at his feet. Once the redhead disappeared from sight, Minato released his kid.'Go outside and wait for me.' Again the little blond looked like if he would protest but in the end he ran out, glaring at the older brunette furiously.

'…That wasn't necessary, was it, Daichi-kun?' the Hokage asked, giving his friend a worried glance. It wasn't just that he thought that the Kazekage was too hard on his son, as this was Suna and people in general were harsher, not to mention he had no saying on how other people raised their kids. 'Please don't be too hard on Gaara-sama… Naru tends to get in trouble, it's probably his fault that he disobeyed you.'

'What I do with that piece of my genes is not your business, so please, keep your funny outrageous fatherly advices to yourself. I raised more kids than you and I still remember how to treat a circus lion so don't tell me what to do with a beast on the leash as you have no rights to speak to me about the 'raising kids' matter at all.'

Then he turned away and slowly walked to the window that was shining with desert light at both of them. 'And now, let's talk about something more of importance.'

The Hokage slowly unrolled the held scroll, gazing at the redhaired man in silence. The Suna's Kazekage knew that, and did not say a thing.


	2. Chapter Two: Ugly like me

Gaara walked slowly, shaken by the outburst and the consequences. Not that he didn't expect them, he knew that his father wouldn't be happy if he spotted them, but it was still not a pleasing feeling when the older man was displeased with him. And he even dared to imagine what would it be once he would learn walking on the wall and show it proudly to father and... Well, now it was probably a disgraceful event and him walking on walls was not something to be done soon.

He wished he didn't have to sit in his cold and alone room but it was his father's orders. He stopped though when he heard the known voice. Naruto. What was Naruto thinking, following him like that? Has he been proven not enough he couldn't be kept as a close friend? And yet, he stopped. He couldn't help being curious. The blond actually amazed him more than once now. Maybe this time he will do something new too?

'Faster!' yelled Kazekage and the sand suddenly rustled up quicker and much louder, indicating that the redhead actually speeded up his moves.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Naruto waited outside the door, angrily wiping at his eyes. He wasn't sad about what had happened, just really, really angry. Why was Gaara's father getting so riled up over something stupid like them training? It was a lie that Gaara couldn't walk on walls like other ninja, he was just too nervous and had a hard time doing so, but he'd been doing fine! And now he was grounded because of him and… He looked at the door again. His daddy wanted him to wait outside. That meant right the other side of the room.

He walked to the nearest window, easily climbing up to look, trying to find the small redhead among the people getting in and out of the building. After a few moments he finally caught side of the other's figure, but only because it seemed everyone moved away from him, so it was easy to single him out, even from that height.

'Gaara!' he slapped a hand on his mouth at how loud he'd been, giving the door an alarmed glance, then staring at it distrustingly for a few moments. Important document rooms were soundproofed, right…? Well… they were in Konoha. He looked back down.

'Gaaara!' he hissed as quietly as he could. 'Pst! Hey, Gaara!' he waved at him there frantically, then gave the room another look. Outside really was a bit of a vague order, right? Everywhere but inside the room was outside the room. Sure, that's not what his father had meant and he knew it perfectly well, but if they were to get down to what technically was said—

'Gaara, wait!' Naruto jumped down and ran all the way down the building.

Naruto did. Maybe it was momentum from the ran down the building or maybe the blond alone, but the little kid practically tackled the redhead in a quick hug before pulling away and rubbing the back of his head, more or less in the spot that he thought the other had been smacked. "I'm so sorry, Gaara, did it hurt? I tried to tell your dad that it wasn't your fault, but he didn't want to listen, and then my dad told me to be quiet and I couldn't say anything else, I'm so sorry you got scolded—Gaara, are you okay?'

The redhead nodded, slowly pulling Naruto's hand away though the caress seemed nice. But even if it was nice it was alien and mother seemed suspicious about the sudden closeness so he backed off a little. 'I'm okay.' he said. And he really was. It was nothing new after all and he couldn't expect anything else, even if all that made him feel pain again. 'Father doesn't have to listen to anyone, he is the Kazekage so he is right. I'm sorry you had to witness this.' he said and turned around. 'I have to go to my room.'

'But that's not fair, it wasn't your fault…' the blond looked saddened by the other's resignation. Weren't Kage's supposed to be fair and protect the people on their village? Especially their own kids! His face fell even more when the redhead turned around. Now the other probably didn't want to be his friend anymore. 'Gaara I'm…really sorry I got you in trouble, I didn't mean to.'

'It's not anyone's fault.' he said and looked at Naruto. 'You don't have to apologize.' If anything, he should have been more opposing to Naruto's ideas, he knew his father was not approving of anything he did alone. He only got carried away by what the blond had offered and thought that maybe, maybe father would be actually proud... But whatever's happened has happened and he only could deal with what was left now. he only worried about his teddy, but if he send some sand to the backyard now, he will be able to proceed on getting it through window. Hopefully, nobody stole him away. And about the blond...

If he got locked into his room, there was a very slim possibility to meet the blond again. And it seemed that he had something in common with the second, bigger blond so it was even more possible he would not meet him in the future. And he didn't really want to say goodbye to him when he found someone who didn't run away from him. So... the only option left was... 'Come with me?'

Naruto blinked and his whole face brightened at the offer surprised that the pale redhead would still want to play with him- even invited him to his house! He'd opened his mouth to enthusiastically agree before suddenly winced, reminding himself of one tiny itty bitty detail…. "I-um…' he looked at the tower, his expression becoming more and more disheartened the more he looked up. "…I have to ask my dad…' who seriously would never say yes if he realized Naruto had disobeyed him. Even though he technically hadn't because he was outside the room, but still—

Gaara stared at him, but then his face fell down a little as his shoulders slumped. It seemed that Naruto's dad was not really kind on that matter. And if he was that blond in the room up above, it was a lost matter.

He looked at the floor, jabbing it a little with his foot and he tore at his cheek, itchy a bit because of the unsettled sand who seemed to sense the blond was going away and seemed to not be agreeable to that also. Why did he have such a bad luck when it came to people? All people he knew feared him and when it came to new - they had to go away. He sighed a little, facing the blond again as the sand moved and slowly lead his teddy into the house through the opened door. It felt reassuring to see that at least one thing didn't want to leave him. But even with that, he felt lonely.

'You sure?' he asked timidly, but he knew it was a task not to be done. Then he looked at the door above them. They were closed. 'But...'

He looked at the door to his own room. They didn't seem to be very far away. '...your dad is not here right now so he won't know?...'

'He'll know…' His dad always seemed to know when he did something to disobey him. '…I shouldn't even be down here, he told me to wait there…' he looked at the redhead, then back up and back at Gaara, biting his lip and fidgeting. It was all that wide foreheaded`s brunette's fault. If he hadn't made his dad think Gaara was dangerous, they could be playing now.

If he went now they could play- for a little while. Then his dad would get angry and wouldn't let him near the redhead again. If he went back, then he could butter him up until he agreed. "I can't. If I go now he'll get mad and won't let me play with you anymore.' He said sullenly, looking up at the door as if he could prevent it from opening up by will alone. "I'll try to talk to him so he'll let me go and-and-' he turned back to the redhead, smiling hesitantly "If he lets me, can I go then?'

Gaara nodded, but he didn't feel very reassured by those words. The big blond didn't look at him with anything but fear and anxiety, so he had all rights to suspect it wouldn't work. He grabbed onto his plush teddy bear and hugged it, observing the blond. No, it really didn't feel very reassuring. The big blond probably thought he hid dead bodies there, even if he wasn't doing that. Not since Kankuro dared to hide in his closet anyway and woke up the whole house. Now he held them in the unused chimney. Because it wasn't like Santa would come to him anyway. He never did. He blinked, then moved the stuffed teddy's paw and for a silent goodbye and slowly proceeded into moving to his own room. He had to clean blood from the carpet again. It would occupy his mind from the sadness probably...

Mother was not so happy about that and clung on the blond's ankles lightly, stopping him a little but not too much. It was only because he felt she feared his father somehow. He didn't want Naruto think of him dangerous too, so he asked for her to not be too violent. Finally, she stopped. Good mom.

Naruto stopped, his whole skin crawling as if termites marched under it at the feeling of the sand actually touching him.

'Let…let me go.' He said to it, strangely wishing it had a face so he could claw at it to make her do so. He looked bad at the redhead, who looked even more miserable than how he felt and to the tower. He brushed himself off when she finally did, but all he saw was a small kid with hair that looked like if it had been bled on slowly walking away. 'I'll see you then!' he yelled, then looked back up to the tower and decided the best way to get back up was through the window, but he'd gotten tired of using so much charka already, and he didn't know if it'd hold all the way up. Run all the way up there…

#+#+#+#+#+#

The brunet glanced at the blond, his sight sharp as hawk's glare.

'Don't tell me how to raise my own children.'

'I'd never advice you on such things, you know me better than that.' After all, it was a running joke that whenever a joint mission with Suna happened, Minato and Daichi would somehow end up paired up and working together. Most of his chuunin life had been spent working with the current Kazekage, and he would have liked to think that the older man knew him better than to try to instruct him on things he didn't know about. 'All I'm saying is whatever happened, Naruto probably was the cause of it… So please don't punish him for something that wasn't his fault.'

He couldn't help but feel bad about the little redhead, but he really didn't know the circumstances and meddling in the matter would be out of line.

'As for the reports,' he gestured with his hand to the discarded papers on the table. 'I brought the scrolls like you asked for. None of our shinobi should have been even close to the border, the closest we got to the borders was a jonin with his group of genins, and they were only escorting a group of merchants.' He frowned 'I don't know where did those shinobi come from, but if they were medics, they weren't from Konoha.'

'I don't CARE who was the cause of this, Minato.' said the Kazekage, turning to the blond suddenly and stepping around his desk in a dynamic motion 'All I care about is what could have happened and I'm sure that your son would be in pieces if I wouldn't intervene. Gaara need to control his urges and it's his fault for letting them go on such range whatever your son did.'

The hawk's glare deepened and sharpened at once, sending pins and needles through it, actually scolding Minato with it. 'You don't know what is it like since your brat has a good seal so do not dare to talk me out of it. Gaara deserves punishment and he will receive one. That's how he must know he can't just go and let Shukaku run free.'

Then he stopped and turned to the window again, listening to the report in silence. 'If that so...' he spoke 'Then I believe the enemy is starting to move again.'

#+#+#+#+#+#

Door! How long has he been down here? Sudden paranoia made him look up and almost see the door being slowly opened, even though it was purely his imagination- Both his father and Gaara's had momentarily forgotten the kids and were discussing security measures on the borders of Fire and Wind Country- but it was a powerful imagination. There was no time for the gazillion of stairs, he had to run up there! Gathering as much chakra as he could on the soles of his feet he broke in a run and pushed himself up as fast as he could, and nearly made it all the way to the fourth floor before his knees gave out and he plummettled down- all of about two feet and landed with an oof on the floor.

Which was funny. He didn`t remember the floor having been so close. Or being warm and cushy. In fact, he was positive the floor didn't have silver hair and a throbbing vein on its forehead. 'Kashi….!' He gasped, plastering a wide, innocent smile on his face. 'Um… You found me! Now I'll count to sixty and you can hide!'

'For you, Mr. Kakashi, Naruto.' said 'Kashi' and he jumped from the wall, landing on the floor without damage. 'Do you have an idea what kind of troubles will await me because of you? Do you? I bet you don't.'

Really, had this kid had any empathy at all? It seemed that all he cared about was his idea of fun and some limitless straining himself. He couldn't blame him for the latter as the kid was simply bored, but he could hold onto the rules once he was given them, right? At least when it came to place. If he knew that Naruto would sneak out of the room on the wall, he'd never taught him walking on such surfaces. Naruto always thought that 'outside' meant the whole world and 'inside' - also drawers, closets and all holes that could be described as another rooms in one hotel.

And he was so happy once Minato left him in the village!... But since Minato was overprotective, it was quickly ruined. Oh well, life. But really, now he was going to get the punishment for that when he did all to find the kid. Oh. Here we go. The doors above opened and who stood in them? Minato, of course. He braced himself, clamping the hand over the blond's mouth. It was better if Naruto didn't ruin more his damaged position he was already in.

Naruto rolled his eyes, looking unimpressed at the teenager 'But Kaaaa-shi, daddy will only mgfffphh mffphh mphhf-' Naruto apparently didn't notice or didn't think a hand on his mouth was a real obstacle to voicing his opinions, because he kept talking despite the muffling. Why did the older male have to exaggerate so much? His dad would just scream at both of them some and then get over it, and more than likely apologize later… and sometimes he had the feeling that was the part that Kashi didn't like, because his dad always made you feel guilty when he apologized, even when it was obviously his fault.

A good politician, grampa called it. Naruto just thought it was being an evil dad, but at least he was there, safe and sound by the moment his dad came out of the room.

'Ah, Kakashi-kun,' Minato said, smiling at his student kindly. If one didn't know better, one would think his words alone made the temperature pummel some good twenty degrees. At least it was enough to make the younger blond still and stop mumbling against the handmade gag. 'So glad to see you finally found Naru-chan.'

His son blushed lightly- he hated it when his father called him like that in public. Which Minato did, a lot. He needed to glare at someone, but doing it to his father was out of the question in his current state. He settled for glaring at the Kazekage, but that was simply depressing as the man simply ignored him.

'Yes... I'm glad too.' said Kakashi, feeling that the doom had already started and nothing could stop it now from happening so he could at least be honest to himself. Then smoke the last cigarette and die. 'I'm really sorry, Hokage-sama, he sneaked out on his own, even if I told him to not do that.'

'Tsk. And what kind of ninja doesn't notice a fly flying out, not talking about the objects of size of that' there he showed with his hand to Naruto 'kind? Minato, I begin to wonder if Konoha didn't start pummeling down with teachings in academies.'

'I wish it were as simple as that, Daichi-kun,' Minato said, his steely gaze shifting to his child, who at the moment would have been very happy if Kakashi had decided to hide him behind him instead of having him in front where he was being objected first row to the Hokage`s killing instinct. 'Unfortunately, Naruto has proven he can sneak out from jounin, Anbu, and even me...' The blond rubbed at his eyes tiredly, and the little boy felt a distinct pang of guilt at the expression. 'Normally I'd be proud of it, if only he didn't use those skills to worry me.'

'It only proves that your ninjas are getting lazy and you are getting either old or too soft.' said the Kazekage and eyed the blond with steely glare 'I taught my kids to respect my words, even if they were not exactly... obedient.' he said and looked at Kakashi. Hatake winced. What could this man want from him?... He wasn't subordinate of Suna so no words of his should reach him, but it still felt bad feeling the guilt creeping from the Hokage's remorseful stance and cold eye of a desert hawk himself.

'I'd fire my ninja from his duty if he were to fail me like that on Gaara.' spoke the Kazekage again. Kakashi felt the sweat forming on his forehead 'Or who knows, maybe even... kill.' The last word was said in a low, almost purr-like tone, like if the Kazekage was delighting himself with it. The way he looked at his nails didn't make it look any less from what it sounded like. The young ninja glanced at Naruto. Well, brat was safe, but he couldn't be so sure. If only the other man could shut up and not give off such ideas to Minato-sama!... But he could just stand obediently there like a dog waiting for kicks and be thankful for them. Darn.

'You keep forgetting, Daichi-kun, that when you are an old man of thirty, I'll be a youngster of twenty eight. Although…' He stared at his student and child with such a positively sweet smile and for so long that they were both ready to start pleading for mercy at the fact he seemed rather enthusiastic of the Kazekage's suggestion. 'No, I`d rather not. Kakashi-kun is my trusted student and the only person that can keep Naru-chan more or less under control in my absence.' Not to mention the only person Minato would trust leaving his precious son alone with.

'Wouldn't you like to try babysitting, though, Daichi-kun? ' he turned the sweet, dooming smile onto his friend. 'I'm sure it would be a remarkable experience for all of us.'

'He.' The Kazekage looked at Naruto from affair, obviously humored by the idea, but his glare didn't get a snippet from the smile. It still seemed to be cold, distant and kept on getting more and more disgusted as the time passed. 'Do you really think, Minato... -kun.' the suffix was added after a moment of a prolonged silence, adding more oil to the hidden flame that kept on warming up the Kazekage's body '...that I, as a Kazekage, have so much free time to pass it on babysitting some underage brats?'

The laugh he let go was more of a chuckle than real laughter and it soon turned into one, though all this held no happiness in whole at all. Slowly, he tore his cold glare from Naruto and looked through the window, observing.

'And that's the reason I'm still friends with you after so long, Daichi-kun,' the Hokage said, still smiling at the older man, before reaching and ruffling the top of the saffron hair, not unlike he did with his own five-year old. 'Either way, this has been a very long day, and something to eat would be nice. We can continue our business tomorrow. You know where to find me if you need me!' With that, the taller blond walked to his pupil and son, grabbed the latter and dragged the first out of the immediate area of danger.

'That was very unwise of you, Hokage-sama.' said Kakashi in tiny and a little choked voice, which somewhat curled in itself as he witnessed a real devil suddenly coming out of the eyes of, like one would suspect, an average Kazekage who neared his thirties. Two seconds more and the office would probably be bathed in blood. Though he had to admit that if anything, Minato had his reflex - barely anybody could caught Kazekage off guard, touch his body and get away with it without losing his life or at least a limb or two. He wondered how come that Minato was still alive...

'Very.' he added, now with little more masculine voice and coughed to regain the tone again 'Wouldn't that severe the national friendship? Besides the village is now in siesta and no bars are working under that blazing sun so we don't really have a place to stand by...'

'I know young people tend to forget this, but once, many moons ago, we were young, too. We were friends before making Kage, and that's something Daichi-kun likes to forget and I like reminding him of.' The older blond said unaffectedly, smiling at his pupil and trying to unglue his son from his torso. '…I might come back from tomorrow's meeting with a broken limb or too, but you still remember those medical tricks Rin taught you, right?'

Naruto was glued to his side, arms wrapped around his neck and legs to his side. 'Daddy…' he hissed, resembling a scared cat that wouldn't let go of the tree he was hanging upside down from until the shock passed. 'That man wanted to kill you!'

'He often does, baby.' He said, patting the little blond on the top of his head and wincing a bit at the way his nails dig on his shoulders. Sometimes he really wondered if he should dewclaw Naruto. 'You get used after a while.'

Naruto looked at him visibly traumatized- the blunt end of Daichi`s glare was enough to terrify most people he knew, and misbehaving kids weren't the exception. Maybe this would teach his son not to run away where he would be unsafe. 'Don't worry, we will just ask for some rooms service. We just need to make sure we actually see them cooking what they are going to give us.'

'As you wish, Hokage-sama.' responded Kakashi, touching his pockets and sighing in relief. Yes, indeed, he still remembered a few tricks that deceased Rin taught him and had his medical utensils near himself just in case of emergency. And in case of friendship, as Minato seemed to make friends with the weirdest characters, who liked to show their friendship through variety of violent moves. Like Sabaku no Daichi, for example.

He glanced once again toward the Kazekage's tower, noting that the Kazekage was again staring off through the window onto his town, as his figure could be spotted behind the glass of his office, probably enjoying the view of dull buildings or maybe trailing them off, who knew. He also spotted a second, similar pair of eyes looking at them through the second window, next to the window of office, but they vanished quickly, just like their owner. Probably one of secretive guards of Suna's ANBU. He never could learn how their services was called here, so he also decided to call them ANBU. Which annoyed them to no end.

'Ah well, at least we will eat something new.' And it was always good to taste some new cuisine. And if they're gonna be sick then it was even better as Minato could lie in bed and call in sick, subsiding Kazekage's wrath. Maybe matching up broken bones wouldn't be needed after all...

#+#+#+#+#+#

The Kazekage glared at the street, just as predicted by the youngster - he was trailing after the three figures of Hokage and his brats. Brats - because he was far from calling that young ninja anything regular, even if he was Sakumo's son. Legends were legends, but sons were not fathers and Kakashi still was more of a milk-drinker than of any other alcoholic-adultery drinks. And speaking of sons...

He moved, brushing his mass of saffron hair into elegant hairstyle that the outrageous Namikaze dared to mess with and soon enough he opened the door of a very dark and dirty room. The stench of blood dripped from everywhere again and sand seemed to be looking more like Persian red than his usual persimmon shade so the boy probably didn't hold on his urges for very long. No matter what he said or did - he never was able to sustain it in the end. It seemed that once a monster - always a monster. What a shame to the family.

'Gaara.' he spoke out loud sharply, getting attention of the small figure who seemed to be glued to window's glass, along with some black eyes. it seemed that he found a new prey and it was no one other than Minato's son. He couldn't let that happen, no matter what.

Blond brat, how disgusting he was, couldn't be put in mortal danger even if he asked for it. Not by anyone in Suna, at least. That would severe too many brakes and vows. 'I forbid you to play, touch and do anything to or with Hokage-sama's son. Or else...' The figure looked at him with big green eyes, that reminded him of Karura so much. Why did he have to get them? Sometimes it was too hard to not forget he was just a monster in the flesh imitating human's actions instead of being a human. Fake actions, as hugging teddy closer or trembling with fear didn't help this image either.

'...I'll make you stay in bathroom. For three days.'

The little redhead squealed, visibly terrified, but he didn't give himself or it any time to rethink that or hear out the pleads. The he couldn't. He was not made of steel. So he couldn't give himself a chance to waver. He closed the door. The redhead sat on his back, hugging the teddy protectively to himself and starring at the door with the feeling of unfairness and fear at the same time. Bathroom? Three days?... He never was locked in the bathroom for so long! He didn't want to! At all!

Bathroom was terrible.

He looked at the window one more time, then with one sharp wave made the sand cover it, and hide him in a dark, bloody place with no light. Naruto didn't come after all. He went and never came back. Away... Promises, promises, empty promises. They always sold him only that. And he was naive enough to believe in them one more time. He cried in despair, smearing his face over the toy and letting the dirt cuddle him and cake his skin and hair with drenched blood. Everyone betrayed him on this world. Everyone lied. Always.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Normally intruders creeping into the Hokage`s bed late at night would be received in the most standard of shinobi fashion. But Namikaze Minato wasn't just a shinobi or a Hokage anymore. Now, he was also a father, and nightly visits, though rare, weren't enough for him not to recognize the small weight crawling under the blankets.

'Something happened, Naru?'

'I was cold.' His child replied in a mumble as he cuddled against his chest, fingers reaching to tug on his necklace distractedly, and Minato had yet another moment of paternal disappointment.

Naruto had never been a problematic child in that aspect- Sarutobi-sensei liked to joke it seemed like if the father had more problems sleeping alone than his son- and yes, giving Naruto his own room three years ago had resulted in many intermittently slept nights because Minato couldn't live with himself unless he checked on him five or twenty times in one night. Naruto didn't have problems sleeping alone, and he only ever came to bed with him if he wanted something or if he had had a nightmare. He knew he should be thankful for such a thing, but truthfully, it only made him feel unneeded. Weren't children supposed to be more attached to their parents? Especially considering he only one had one…

He looked at the window, gauging the hour to be around three thirty in the morning by the position of the moon alone. Hopefully Naruto hadn't woken Kakashi up. His remaining student really needed some rest after spending three nights in a row watching after the little blond menace. Two more hours of sleep… He probably could make it four, but he really preferred to go out when the air was still breathable without feeling like if you had put your head in an oven. He wondered if Daichi had as much fun seeing him suffer from the horrendous heat as when he saw the older Kage feeling sick from the humidity in Fire and Water country. Yeah, he probably was going to be made to walk a lot under the sun tomorrow.

'Hey, daddy…?'

'Mhh?' Oh, there we go. `Hey, daddy`, were there any more terrifying words in the human language? …besides `broken seal`, that is, but the `Hey, daddy`s were so much more frequent! 'It's late, baby…' he said, pulling the blond closer so he wouldn't have to look at the boy's eyes. 'And you haven't slept in two days and I'm very tired and have to get up very early, so…'

'Why doesn't the Kazekage want me playing with Gaara?' Minato suddenly longed for the days where all he had to worry about was explaining Naruto where babies came from.

'Is it something I did?'

'Oh, no, Naru, nothing like that,' Sure, Daichi probably hadn't been appreciative of Naruto's attitude, but if there was one person in this world who had no right to complain about anyone's attitude, that was Sabaku no Daichi. 'He's just… worried.'

'…why?' Minato sighed, propping himself up in an elbow and pressing his fingers into the warm mess of gold that was Naruto's hair, stroking gently.

'Well… Gaara-sama is the son of the Kazekage and you are the son of the Hokage… and if you two were together and someone got hurt-'

'But I wouldn't hurt Gaara!'

'Naruto, keep your voice down, Kakashi-kun is sleeping.'

'I wouldn`t-'

'I know, baby, I know. But if by chance something happened, it would be very bad for us. Kazekage-sama and I have been friends for very long and it's thanks to that that we have settled many problems our villages had in the past, and we can't let that go to waste. '

Naruto buried his face on his chest, making an odd noise that Minato had come to associate with him being crossed. The silence extended for several seconds and just when Minato had decided it was safe to relax and go back to sleep…

'And if Kashi were there?'

'Naru…'

'You let me go to the Hinata-chan and Neji's home when I go with Kashi.' The little blond insisted.

Yes, he did trust his student to face an entire clan of jūken users and keep his baby safe and sound, but maybe placing him against a sand demon would be asking too much of him. Maybe he should start considering giving him an extra for all the trouble's he got into… '- so maybe if you left me with him and his mother, we could play and you wouldn't worry and we could-'

The Hokage was suddenly very aware he had blanked out wondering on his own head and had apparently missed something rather important.

'What?' The younger blond sighed theatrically. 'I said if you leave me with Kashi and Gaara's mom-' 'Karura-san, you mean?' The boy developed a sudden fascination with the necklace and started picking at it as if it contained all the answers to the universe's questions. 'Um… I don't know her name. The sand…'

'Sand.' He repeated, already feeling his eyes watering up from fright. That was the worst part of being a father. You couldn't just enjoy knowing your baby was already safe. Even if he was unscratched, your brain saw fit to provide you with a morbidly detailed diorama of what could have happened.

'…I think she likes me.' He said carefully, and Minato got the distinct impression he wasn't very happy about it.

'…she?' Demons technically didn't have a gender, but were universally referred as `he` or `it`, so why did Naru-

'Gaara's mommy.'

Minato blinked.

'Baby… Gaara-sama's mother died when he was born.'

Naruto stopped tugging at the silver cylinders on his father's neck and rolled on his stomach, pushing himself up by the elbows.

'But… Gaara said she was in the sand… and showed her to me!' He said, the cerulean eyes that were a copy of his mother wide and confused. Minato suddenly felt like if he'd gotten punched in the gut by a mist nin.

'Gaara-sama told you that the sand was his mother.' He said slowly. He didn't know what to do when his child nodded quickly as answer. That little boy thought the demon was his mother? What the hell had Daichi told him about his mother?

Was that what the redhead had referred to when he had started saying something about his her…? Minato nearly shivered. He didn't want to think what was the redhead's life like if he believed a demon to be his mother.

'Daddy,' Naruto's voice was muffled.

'Yes, baby?' he said in his most calm and collected of voices. Sarutobi-sensei would be proud.

'…can't breathe.'

It was then that the Hokage realized he had given into one of his most common tics- squeeze Naruto to death when he felt he had been in mortal danger. Which usually happened two or three times a day.

'Oh… sorry, baby.' he said, loosening his hold enough for the child to regain his breathe, even if there was no way Minato would let go of him until it was absolutely necessary.

'…So…can we-?'

'No. God, no.'

'….cnt brth.'

Minato loosened the hold again.  
'Listen, Naruto, I know you want to be friends with him, but you can make other friends.'

'I can't.' the boy said quietly, and Minato faltered; felt something cringe inside at the tone alone. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that tone, that palpable sadness could be a physical thing so he could beat it, kill it and dispose of the body.

'You have Hinata-chan and Neji-kun.' He continued after a few seconds.

'They are in Konoha. Daddy, she likes me, so can't we tell her to talk to the Kazekage-' Minato had a moment of unreality where he imagined himself discussing permission to let their kids play with the desert raccoon over tea, and the having it ask Daichi- He wasn't sure what he wanted to do more, if laugh himself silly or throw up.

'We are going back home in a week or so.' He should have left Naruto home. None of this would have happened if he had ignored his paranoid parental feelings and left him where he would have been safe and taken care of.

'… I want to be friends with Gaara.' And oh, God, there was the tone. The I`m-the-mule-and-just-dug-my-hoof-here-and-you-can-tug-all-you-want-but-I-won`t-move-another-inch.

'Why, baby?' he nearly moaned.

'He's like me.' Minato`s blood ran cold. He heard himself ask Naruto what did he meant by that. '…he's lonely. He was crying when I met him.' It's not your business. his brain reminded him It`s not your business and he isn't your son and Daichi will kill you if you stick your nose when you aren't called—

'Do you know why?'

'He was sad.' Minato rolled his eyes. Children. How could their world be so simple? 'People ran from him, too.' Maybe not so simple…

'Because of the sand…?' Naruto hesitated a little, not knowing what to answer.

'They ran more when she came out.'

Could it be that his friend's son had it worse than he did? He sighed again, looking up at the room's roof and resumed stroking Naruto's hair. Kushina would have known what to do. Not only was she a woman and better equipped for dealing with things like these, but she also had the exact same type of character their son did. Kushina would tell him…

…Kushina would beat him up and ask him how did he even need to think about her to figure out that little boy needed help.

'Naru?'

'Mhh?' sleepy now.

'How did the sand make you feel?'

'…I liked Gaara better.'

'But did it want to hurt you?'

'No… it liked me.'

Great… the bloodthirsty raccoon didn't want to eat his child, which meant… Absolutely nothing. In fact, Minato wasn't even sure if it wasn't worse that way.

'Naru, did Gaara-sama…?' He stopped, looking down at the sleeping from of his son, dark lashes closing over eyes that were just like the ones of his late wife and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do this time.


	3. Chapter Three: We are

'Tough night, Hokage-sama?'

Minato rubbed his eyes, not even deigning his student with a look as he straightened his robes.

'Go back to bed. You should take the chance to rest while he's still down.' He muttered instead. The 'he' in question was a curled up form in the middle of his bed, looking positively angelic in the bunch of blankets that would doubtlessly be kicked around as soon as the sun appeared.

'…I can't believe how innocent he looks like this.' The silver-haired teen observed, his tone almost bordering on warm. '…can't we do something to keep him like this, sensei? …like…murder him or drug him?' he cranked his neck to the side, barely avoiding two shuriken that embedded themselves in a rather bad painting of two apples and a kiwi. '…Well, hoping is for free.'

'Yeah, but you know what isn't? Hospital bills. And you will have a lot of those if Naruto gets out of your sight today.' Kakashi stifled a yawn. 'I'll hogtie him, then.'

Minato didn't tell the jounin it would probably take the sleeping terror around twenty minutes to get out of those and started looking around for his hat.

'Just make sure he doesn't go near the youngest Sabaku- oh, thank you,' he took the hat from his student's hands, just not noticing the teen wasn't wearing his usual mask. Automatically, he reached for the tousled hair and ruffled it lightly, making the younger male blush and pull away. 'Just make sure he is at thirty meters away from him.'

'Any particular reason, sensei?'

'Of course, Kakashi-kun,' he said, smiling at him sweetly. 'Your Hokage orders you so.'

'…I really miss Nara in moments like these-'

'And I'm sure Maito-kun missed you more than what you miss Shikaku-kun.' He said, enjoying a little too much the wince it got as answer. 'Don't wait up for me, I will be late.' The silver head nodded, and after one last look to his son, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Ding, cuckoo. Ding, cuckoo. Ding, cuckoo. Ding. Three times the foreign bird in the wooden cage announced an hour. Four times the golden bell attached to it dang and chimed about half an hour. It was three thirty a.m. Green dim eyes observed the wooden bird with golden beak as it showed and vanished, raising his little wings up and down. Every time it chirped, the bell moved, blinking in the faint moonlight. It was a very pretty clock. A present from Konoha's Hokage for Temari's third birthday. She treated it with care and liked it very much. He never got anything from anyone on his third birthday besides an astonished glare from a father.

'It's three years already?' he asked him, like if he couldn't believe that Gaara lived for so long.

Then his gaze turned sorrowful and he left him alone in the corner. The only present he was ever given, was one for his second birthday. It stayed with him until now. But not as usual. Taken with care and hugged tightly for most of the time, he lied, eviscerated in the dark hiding of the room as the redhead clawed at the floor with tense fingers.

'Hurts.' He muttered, his face frowning, pale and sweated as moonlight hit his skin also. 'My tummy… hurts.'

Shukaku ate too much again. It usually was that his mother's behavior affected him rather genuinely, but not as much. There were times though, when she just kept on eating and eating, both new and old corpses, until she ate every piece of flesh and bone he could find and didn't want to stop. It usually happened around the full moon, just as now, when she seemed to grow a little nervous and trashed around his body, seeking some relief. And she found it in eating and he couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes he didn't even try to. Even when they both ended up in pain. Like now.

'Hurts.' He whimpered again, feeling how his mother laid somewhere in the back of his thoughts in the same amount of pain. 'Mommy…'

She rumbled at him something completely meaningless that could mean both 'I'm sorry' and 'Shut up' and moved on the other side, making him move with her. Somehow, when he copied those positions, the pain seemed to be a little more bearable. He hoped that he meant 'I'm sorry'. He really hoped.

But then, the pain escalated and he whined out loud, hoping beyond hope that actually someone would come and make it feel better, but nobody came. He was partially happy about it, because if his dad came in, he'd probably get shouted at. And if it was Kankuro, he'd probably complain to dad. Temari never woke up at those times.

The clock ticked.

Finally, he decided to make a decision. It was far from the dawn, but he couldn't bear it anymore. So if he wanted to make it stop, he had to do that himself. He slowly rose up to his knees and looked around. If he saw the clock, then it meant he was in the hallway. Sometimes, when the pain caught him, he just tended to forget where he was. So, usually it was better that he fainted at home.

But if he was in the hallway, then it meant…

'Kitchen.' He murmured and slowly got up, frowning deeper as the pain grasped his stomach and turned it upside down, making him taste copper in the back of his throat. Somehow it felt like if he ate some of fl-

The clock ticked. He looked at it. Golden numbers showed 3:37 a.m. It was the moment when the father usually had light dream so he had to be extra silent. He knew that as he observed the rhythm of this house for far too long in endless nights. He moved around the drawers, not lighting the lamp as the light could look suspicious and draw attention to him. He searched. First drawer, no. Second – pots and kettle – no. Third – also no…

Then it had to mean one thing. Drawers up above. It was only logical as they were chilled up to hide such things, but he still hoped he wouldn't have to climb there. His chakra was disturbed now and he could only depend on mother's abilities and she was not in a very gentle and providing mood. He hoped up, but his feet didn't hold up and he landed on the floor with a thud and whimpered as his stomach gurgled again. Now his mouth tasted even more bitter and sweet.

He decided to use the sand.

The sand was helpful, right?

And he could control it quite fine now too… He managed to open the first drawer, but his vision wavered as the gurgling in his stomach didn't stop and started to get close to his throat again and again. He swallowed the metallic taste and swallowed, but it seemed to just go up and just when he tried to open the second drawer it came with a burst to his mouth and he lost control. Sand fell down- And blood fell down his mouth- And frying pans and bread fell down- And all of this made so much noise that the whole house lit up before it even ended.

'Who is there?' he heard coming up from the stairs as his father descended, coming quickly. 'Show yourself!'

'That's probably only Gaaa… wn.' Could be heard from the higher level as the other door opened and closed immediately, muffling the voice 'Stupid bro…'

Why Kankuro always had to blow his cover for no logical reason? He sobbed, awaiting for the consequences, the blood running from his mouth and nose where it went as he coughed it up and covering the floor in dirty, muddy droplets. He was going to be punished again. He didn't want to!... 'Momm-' he started with a wail, but then a hand with a material covered his mouth and cut him off.

'It's all right, Gaara-sama.' could be heard from up above in a warm, hushed tone 'Clean yourself, please. I will do it.'

'Yashamaru?...'

'It's all right, Gaara-sama.' The man smiled at him, his face being an illusionary copy of the features of woman from the picture and seeming oddly femmish in puce dressing gown. How odd he was there first, almost like if he was there all the time. But under his care he felt protected so he didn't spare this thought any more time. He blinked, then nodded, holding the blue handkerchief to his mouth, sniffing how oddly it smelled of chamomile and something other, even more spicy through blood and stopped as the door opened and a very angered man entered the kitchen.

'Yashamaru.' He greeted him in rather angered tone 'Did he do anything-'

'I'm sorry, Kazekage-sama, I was so clumsy.' Said the man immediately 'I was so hungry and I went for a little snack and when I wanted to take the bread out I just… did I wake you up?'

The man glared at him then turned his stare at Gaara and his gaze hardened, noting the dirtied piece of cloth. Gaara shivered under the gaze and added more pressure to it, almost imprinting the flowery pattern into his upper mouth. His father wasn't an idiot, he probably had this all figured out already if not only partially. He seemed to be in foul mood also, as he left the office yesterday quite drained and the big dark bags under his eyes showed he wasn't very rested also.

Yashamaru seemed to notice those also, as he acted on it quickly.

'Oh my, Kazekage-sama, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I'm such a slob.' He said, getting up and examinating him closely 'But don't worry, I will clean this up, please, go back to bed, You must be rested, tomorrow's the another day of hard work with Konoha's Hokage, you must be in the best shape!'

The man glared at him, then sent one more cold glare toward Gaara, seeming disappointed and angry at the same time. 'I thought you were supposed to stay in your room.' He said, seething with grief. Gaara whimpered again, not daring to show his dirtied mouth yet, cowering from the harshness of those hawkish eyes.

He knew what he said. He caught a hawk once. Even as it died in a sickening crush as his mother played with it, his eyes never lost the sharpness. And then they were torn out and he didn't know if they stayed like that after death also, but father, as being alive, was not falling under that option after all.

'I'm sorry' he muttered, but the older man was already turned on his heels and going up by stairs, ignoring him completely in that heavy, full of remorse silent stance. He looked at the floor gloomily. It always was like that…

'Gaara-sama?...'

He looked up at him and slowly unhid his face, giving back the flowery handkerchief, not knowing what to say. Father was father and he failed again, but Yashamaru was Yashamaru and failing him also hurt, but somehow in completely different way. He couldn't decipher what way exactly and why, but he couldn't help feeling like that.

'M'sory' he mumbled under his nose, fidgeting a little, remembering that he left the teddy somewhere on the way down there and regretting that he had nothing to do with his hands. Yashamaru still looked at him, his stare seemed to be oddly cold from the second, warm one and he cowered even more. But then it vanished and the blond smiled at him again.

'Were you hungry too, Gaara-sama?' he asked, taking the handkerchief from his hand and hiding it in the pocket of his dressing gown 'I'll wash it later… do you want me to make you a sandwich too?'

Sandwich?... His stomach turned again and he paled, taking a casual step back.

'N-no…' he said, shaking his head 'But… I would like to… milk…'

'Oh? You want to drink milk?' he nodded. Yashamaru seemed to be very surprised at the fact 'So it was what you wanted? But why, we have water down there, you didn't have to reach up if you were thirsty…'

'I wanted milk.' He said, adding a little pressure. Once in the past Yashamaru said milk was good for tummy aches. He believed him. But at the same time Yashamaru seemed to forget about what he said in the past very often. 'A warm… cup…'

'You have a stomachache?' Ah. He remembered. Gaara smiled. It was good. He was glad. He nodded. 'All right, then I'll make you a cup of milk.' Said Yashamaru and smiled at him, patting him on the head. Then he looked at him strangely again, like if he couldn't decide why he patted him on the head and got back to the drawer, taking out the milk. It really was in the second drawer. He sat near the table, observing the cuckoo in the hallway as the milk boiled quietly in a pan, heating up. The wind outside blew, chilling him and making Shukaku unsteady again and making the sand budge on the floor and dance like if the earthquake was coming, even if there was no calling from earth beneath them. He jumped when the glass was put in front to him. He hadn't noticed when it stopped boiling.

'Drink up while it's hot, Gaara-sama.' He heard and obtained a warm smile again from above the sandwich with snake's pate. It was a luxury even in Suna, where snakes could be easily found on the desert, but Yashamaru, as the member of the family, seemed to be rather fond on buying and eating such food for kage's founds. But he never said anything about that. When it came to him, Yashamaru deserved even more than that. He casually caught the warm glass between his hands and sipped on it, gulping it down rather greedily, while his mother grimaced nastily at the taste which washed down the copper and metallic taste away. He didn't know why, his mother, as Yashamaru said, always liked feeding her kids with breasts and even wished to do that with him, but she didn't manage on that.

She should have liked the milk… shouldn't she?...

'Gaara-sama?...' He looked up from above the glass and blushed, seeing that the blond asked him something and he was too distracted to catch up on it. Yashamaru smiled at him again. 'Were you having fun yesterday?'

He blinked, stopping on drinking and stared at his uncle. Fun?... Ah, he meant the blond boy?... Who had to go home… He had. Until then, of course. He nodded silently, resuming on drinking. Why did the blond boy had to go home?... He promised he would be back! Why did everyone lie to him? He thought he finally made a friend? It was so unfair…

'I see. I thought he was a really nice boy.' Could be heard. He looked at Yashamaru again. The nonstopping smile was still there, shining at him.

But instead of giving him happiness, he felt only more and more remorseful.

'I can't play with him.' He said quietly around another gulp of the white liquid 'Father forbid me to do that.'

'Oh, really? ' said uncle and ate the last bit of the sandwich, looking at him with a smile 'How odd.'

Something strange caught his attention in Yashamaru's voice, but he didn't dare to say anything as he drank up the rest of the milk. Somehow his tummy felt even more full, but now it didn't feel bad. Not at all. Even if his mother still didn't feel good and murmured something about bad aftertaste and damned brats. But he didn't spare this any thought as now Yashamaru got up and looked at him like if he waited for something and it was probably the glass he was holding in his hand.

He gave it to him and hoped down the chair, feeling refreshed. Milk was good. (mph – could be heard in the back of his mind) 'Gaara-sama, go back to your room, I need to clean this up.'

He turned, expecting to hear more or even maybe catch something interesting, but Yashamaru just shooed him off like he usually did while he started putting the pans in fitting order. He turned on his heels, almost disappointed. It was probably just his imagination.

'Oh, and Gaara-sama…' The usual tone disappointed him, but he stopped and looked back at the kitchen he was about to leave. Yashamaru still put the pans in the drawer, along with cut bread.

'I think we are out of snake's pate.' He said lightly, even if he just saw the quite fine block of it being hidden in one of the chillier drawers 'And milk is ending too… will you go with me to the market tomorrow? I'm sure I will need some help with that and with all those crowds of people too… who knows *whom* you might meet there. And I'd have a little protection from that…' Gaara stared. And then he smiled.

'Of course!' he said and ran back to his room almost like if he weighted nothing. Uncle Yashamaru was the best from the whole family after all.

He moved the sand. The rest of the night the redhead spent near the window, observing the sun coming up. Without the sand blocking his view.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato regretted having started to smoke. It made you want to start smoking again at odd times, even when you had dropped the habit years ago.

'…long night too?' He asked, smiling lightly at the brunet next to him. They had just finished a meeting with councilors. A very, very long meeting. All the way from 6 AM till 11:30 AM, with only a little pause for them to have a snack and not a very optimistic meeting at all. More reports had come. They could mean nothing, of course, but there were no such thing as casualties in the shinobi world, and as evidence piled up, Minato was forced to admit something he didn't even want to contemplate.

He leaned on the veranda, looking up at the impossibly blue sky. Beautiful, really, if you could forget it was the rooftop of Earth's largest oven, better known as 'Hidden village of Sand'. The stone beneath his back was hot, but so was everything else in here. 'You really think another war is coming, don't you.'

The brunet turned his eyes from the paper he was holding, the news not being too bad, but not too good either, which could mean nothing if it was told once, but the larger pile of such usually started to wake unhealthy interest. And he was going through fifth of those now. The ones who weren't such, were much worse. Though not as bad as they could be. But they shouldn't be bad at all.

'I'm not going to state anything yet.' He murmured, leaving the rest of papers in a neat pile and looking at Minato with his usual, hawkish glare. Though today it didn't seem so ominous as before as he came to the meeting unrested and was leaving it in a state of complete tiredness. 'But I'm not going to pretend it's a minor thing. We have to hold our stances and be on guard in case if…'

He stopped and looked at the sky. The sun seemed to be especially blinding today. '…anything's happened…'

He had to strengthen the army. He couldn't let them slack in those times. But would that be enough?... And their weapon of massive destruction and defense of everyone… for whom would he fight? It was obvious that in the big bloodshed demon wouldn't stay still. But what if it actually fought with the enemy?... He closed his eyes and frowned in grief. Maybe that was it. Exactly it. He let him live for so long, hoping it would change for better, but nothing has changed. Maybe it was the highest possible and the best time to actually think about safety instead of thinking about weaponry and kill the kid off…

Minato stared at the older Kage, internally wondering why the man seemed so down. He should be glad Daichi trusted him enough to lose a bit of the stony aloofness he usually displayed, but the truth was that seeing the other shinobi as down as the other ever shower was… well, depressing.

'Sometimes I feel more like a secretary than the leader of a shinobi village.' he chuckled, turning around so he could lean on the veranda some more and torture his elbows instead of his back. 'I never had to deal with this much paperwork as a chuunin, not even when it was my turn managing the reports.'

'That's a necessary part of this job, Minato.' Said the Kazekage, still not opening his eyes and not changing the mimic, letting the thought to wander around his mind for a little longer. Then he hid it in the depth of topics laid for later and opened them, looking at the blond 'As far as I heard, some would love to do the paperwork for their whole life it only guaranteed safety of the village. I think it's a waste of strength.' Because, first, you didn't do anything but agreed and disagreed to anything else the people wanted from you. Of course, you had to use your head and that was needed, but ninja skills were usually hidden in strength in techniques. Wasn't it the reason for a sacrifice of his own son?...

And second, war meant battle and battle meant weaponry. A quick way to keep the village in wealth and let the money flow, making people richer. Battle always brought goods, even if it was occupied with blood. Battle was needed. Even villages such as Amegakure knew that. Though it was quite sad for what those youngsters tried to do once. It was obvious that stronger ate weaker. And strong ones needed weak ones to stay strong. Wars were needed. But not so often.

'..We went over one-hundred-and-seventy-three reports.' the blond said, one eye twitching lightly. '...I counted them.'

'You could've used your time better than counting all the reports you went through.' Said the Kazekage scathingly, though he felt like a wreck after such amount of work. But he still abstained from getting up or proposing any possible way of cooling off or resting. Heat was not so bad for him and his skin and he really didn't forget how Minato carelessly played with his hairstyle yesterday in front of a Hatake's son. Minato could do whatever he wanted and be even friendly when they were alone, but he had an image to keep. Thus, revenge was sweet. At such point of the day the open roof changed the highest parts of the building into frying pan.

'Time better spent would have involved me knee deep in snow.' the Hokage muttered glaring at the sun as if he could make it disappear by will alone. Trust the Kazekage to be a sadistic bastard and get him from a smothering hot room to infernal rooftop to `discuss` the matters at depth.

Not much discussing had happened, and Minato had the feeling that it would actually take very little to get away from the older man in the state he was in, but he couldn't get himself to. First, it was the way the man acted, as if he had slept even less than Minato had and whatever time he had spent awake hadn't been exactly spent on happy thoughts. And second, he couldn't help but go back again over what his son had told him last night. '…you look tense.'

'So do you.' Said Kazekage, smiling at him a little too viciously. But then he closed his eyes again and sighed, letting his eyes rest a bit. 'I had a very turbulent night… a pair of desert dogs didn't let me sleep and I couldn't exactly shut them down.'

Maybe he would if it was kid alone who rummaged through his kitchen, as he was sure that Yashamaru never had night snacks – more likely he just sat and drank in kitchen for whatever reasons he had. He never quite stopped with that after Karura died. But when it was turned around like that he had to lie down and stare at the ceiling, listening to every damned step, gulp and chew, his ninja senses playing a bad trick on him. But at least the damned in-law took the brat to the market today so he could be calm about the fact that someone watched over him and the villagers when he couldn't. Gaara was getting too violent lately. And this strange vivid reaction of a sand to Minato's son…

Good grief, he really was not ready for that yet. He always hoped that one day Gaara would be just… Gaara and would turn around in his arms, like Temari did and smile at him or maybe would ask him to read him story about Pinocchio before sleep like Kankuro did… those were small and treasured moments in his family and he hoped, insanely hoped that it would be no different, but it seemed that the ugly was skin deep. Monster took the last child away and laughed back at him with Karura's eyes from a corner, caked in blood. He could never see the smile as Gaara's smile meant danger and he always was afraid of it. He could never read him stories as Gaara's drowsiness meant danger. He couldn't do anything because mostly everything meant danger and the kid was suffering through it all.

Maybe it would be better to really, really kill him. Maybe it would be actually a merciful choice. Because, even if he wanted, Gaara couldn't kill himself. Maybe it would be the best solution – not to them all but to Gaara himself. Like with sick dogs who suffered through imminent aggression and couldn't be helped when started biting their limbs off.

'Yes, but I'm younger, so I can handle it better than the elderly-' Yeah, he probably was getting suicidal from the heat. He looked away from the limpid sky and back to the older man, noticing that he really looked worse to wear. Daichi was an incredibly focused individual, and when he focused in dangerous things…

He should have left Naruto at home and he hadn't, and he should have come to Suna before so much time had passed. So many things he should have done… and yet, still things that he hadn't, for one reason or another.

'…Dai.' Six years since he had seen his friend; and the other man had changed too much and too little. Harsh and coarse, as unforgiving as the sun in the desert, and the last person he could forgive was himself.

So much they had in common, even now. He's lonely. He was crying when I met him. Daichi didn't cry. He'd probably consider it a waste of water. Chuckling at the thought, he turned to the older man with a brilliant smile. 'I've had enough with the paperwork for today. Want to spar?'

Suna would still be hell weather he was in the shade or under the sun, and he could use a bit of training. Besides, if there was one thing that would let the older man to stop dwelling on dark thoughts and get into a remotely approachable mood, that was some physical violence.

The older man budged, then looked up at Minato with a frown, like if he wasn't exactly sure what he heard. And to tell the truth – he really wasn't. Minato wanted to spar? Now? After sitting on this frying pan? Maybe in Konoha this would make some sense as the air could cool the bodies up, but in Suna everything always stayed the same, even if you went into shadows. He wasn't exactly in the best shape so it was probably not the wisest idea as he could probably lose to this big brat, but what kind of Kazekage he was if he did. He was in his own homeland on his own training grounds with the possibilities he could give and opportunities he could grab. It would be an eternal shame to lose – and the same for refuse.

And besides, he could use some sparring for beating out an anger out of himself. He rarely had chance as not many wanted to spar with kage and nobody really could give a good spar, either holding back in respect or being too weak. So a change would be good. 'That's a quite nice idea.' He said, getting up and making his muscles work 'Let me show you our special training grounds…'

Also, he wasn't 'Dai'.

Some said desert was only sand and space. Some people were ignorant fools. Deserts were just as varied as many other places and he valued every form – how could he not when some of them saved his life in the past. Training grounds were made of cliffs that wind hadn't destroyed thoroughly and made a good place to hide or to even train climbing. If someone was harsh enough to do it in a blazing sun, that is. He stopped when they reached the place, admired the unscratched view of the land for the first and last time today and slowly started undoing his kage robe. It was expensive. It would be such a waste to let it go to shreds. He had other expenses to spend money on.

And the sun bit at his skin without mercy now when he was off with it, but he was used to it, he always was. He was proud of his torso and muscles he trained, just as he was proud of ever scar he gained and lived through. Scars were men beauty.

'You're not taking it off?' he taunted, looking at the blond 'I plead for a mano a mano fight, without jutsu or too serious killing. You know what I mean, right?' Those wasn't real rules of 'mano a mano' but then, they had their own story and their own backgrounds. One of such fights was actually a reason he met with the blond Hokage.

He remembered it like today. In the foreign academy where youth of all villages from all countries mingled and worked together, he was one of a few Sunanins who made it through eliminations. All of them were chosen ones and all of them were elite – sooner or later, somewhere, sometime. And because of the number and habits – Sunanins weren't very popular among others. But he never lost his cool and he was always standing up for a challenge. And he never lost.

Never, because he was good. Never – because he fought fair. But at the same time winning never tasted so dull and indifferent for him then. What kind of pleasure it was when you fought to prove yourself and you never really could, because there was always another and another and another who put a doubt… He shook his head.

He haven't seen Minato for six years. Six years since they met on each other's weddings, ten years after leaving the academy and even more after they met up and yet, the blond still stayed the same. Maybe not exactly as some lines were visible on his face and he thought more of his son now instead of his good-natured loose life, but still – he was just a prankster who just laughed by him at his own jokes because he rarely spat any. He was grateful for having such a friend – the one to whom he could stay sincere and who understood – somehow, all beyond the tortoise shells and rhino's skins of his, all his strange acts. Or maybe only tried, but still… he felt at ease. He was glad he could hit such a man and still feel that emotion.

'I would like to think you don't want to start a war over murdering an allied village's leader, or even that you treasure my person as a friend…' He looked down at the hat, before shrugging and tossing it to the side along with his robes, leaving him in a loose tunic and pants. '…and yet your smile tells me all you want is to squeeze as much as you can out of beating me up with an actual excuse for it.' He would have killed to be wearing a lot less, but he wasn't suicidal. Afternoon sun and unused skin were never a good combination.

He stretched, feeling bones snapping into place, and prayed the sun wouldn't slow him down too much. Daichi was slower than he was, but he also packed a lot more brute strength and was used to the environment. At least dealing with a child that required as much attention as a battalion of genins had done wonders for his stamina. He started gathering charka at the vital points, his body starting to hum lightly with excitement. Kakashi-kun was a prodigy and good sparring partner, but he was still developing and he didn't have the experience the older man packed, nor did he have such a twisted, fascinatingly brutal mind.

He smiled at the brunet, then immediately launched to attack, grinning tightly at the shorter man when the punch was blocked. 'Well, let's see what old age has left of you, Kazekage-sama. I'll do my best to be gentle.'

'Oh, I plead for the light punishment.' said the other man as he smirked and launched his own fist, feeling how warm and wet from the sweat was the flesh that caught it and also noticing with satisfaction that the punch probably rang through the blond's body with at least a humid 'pang'. He wasn't Kazekage for nothing. His fists were called 'Rih al Khamsin', because of the gentle, almost unnoticeable touch which made the victim feel like if he stroked him, and a few seconds later... well, he really had a heavy punch. And that technique usually made his enemies fall on the ground with a laughter being showed down their throats as the crushing pain was never expected, always laughed at and always caught people off guard.

But once he started punching all fifty spots over the victims' bodies – it became unforgivable and hard to bear pain, often described as 'burning hot' and 'drying out' because of the special mixture of chakra mixed in his fingers. Rih al Khamsin – the wind of fifty days. The technique was strong as heck, but so was the Hokage. Their abilities clashed and laughed at each other as one of his punches could crush the soft body, not used to harsh life on the desert and thus, not used to harsh blows like that. But the quick moves extracted with agility usually didn't let him lay many. And even if light punches of Hokage didn't affect him much, then many of them added with the speed of Lightening could also wear him out.

Like so many years ago. He was challenged by many and asked by many to lose for the bets that were made. He never lost. And one day a laughing blond asked him for a challenge out of a spur moment of excitement. Harsh words fell and harsh punches were made and he fell on his knee. The blond boy fell on his face. And he won again. He never lost, but he was always good while Minato was only just starting. But to bend him and make him admit the abilities of young blond made him feel like if he lost. He sat near the window for the rest of the day after that and probably he'd stay there until morning, if it wasn't for an offer of a bottle of water.

And water was precious. He didn't drink after battle and never thought to, too occupied with his feral victory. And the genuine smile of Minato, who offered him that water for the first time made him admit that some things were more beautiful than desert roses and pale moonlights at the beginning of dawn. The joy of a friendly rivalry. He remembered it even now, when punch, one after another, landed on his face and bodies, making him bruise up and tiring him out as he strived to land the fists on a flesh hidden behind a colorful tunic. And even if it hurt and even when every missed punch was occupied with pain, he couldn't help smiling. Somehow, he felt alive.

Punch. Nice. He bruised up exactly the place where a nipple should be. In a moment that should hurt like seven scaled burn from the afternoon sun. And now he felt even more alive.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Yashamaru`s plan would have been an excellent idea. On any normal day, a different village and large conglomerations would have attracted Naruto like ants to honey, but unfortunately, that wouldn't happen that day. Because while his father suffered through insanely long meeting and a match of torture with the Kazekage, his son was busy serving as seat for a jounin-babysitter that had decided that good mornings shouldn't start with 'I'm going to visit Gaara'. Not if he wanted to live to see the nightfall, at least.

He did try to reason, of course. He explained to the little kid that daddy had said he couldn't see the youngest Sabaku, and considering daddy could break as many bones as he had without actually killing him, it was in his best interest to keep the apple of his eyes well away from that specific redhead. Things went as planned and as Naruto was being particularly insensitive on regards of the safety of his nana, said nana decided that the end justified the means. Which was the reason he was now sitting on a ropefull ball of squirming blond. Noisy squirming blond, but if you could sleep through explosions going off during wartime, then you could read through a round of insults. And really, where had Naruto picked such language? Hokage-sama definitely wouldn't be happy.

'Shut up, brat, you don't even know the half of what you are saying means…' he muttered, rolling his visible eye when that only got another onslaught of words, and let himself go back to the story of Kenichi and Haruka. _She closed her eyes as his kisses trailed from the neck of her dress, and she felt his fingers tug at the buttons. She longed to turn around and tell him she loved him, but she still held back. She felt cool air on her front as he parted her kimono. With silky brush, it fell back. _

'_I cannot wait any longer, Haruka-sama,' he whispered, his voice hoarse with desire, gazing at her with hungry longing..He reached up to run his hands through her hair, and she caught the glint of the golden band on his finger that reminded her that his love was locked away from her, chained by law to belong to another. 'If another man were to have you-' he bit off his words to kiss her, and her heart felt as if it had stopped beating. Was there any chance, any hope…? _

_She ran her hands over the guard's bare chest, slicking back the light sheen of sweat. Feeling brazen, yet wanting him so badly, loving him terribly, she let her fingers slide lower. *rustle*_ _'Kenichi-san…' she whispered in uncertainty, her hands pausing at the sash he wore as belt. She looked up at him, _his _eyes heavy lidded, his breathing as ragged as hers. She slid her hands lower, and moaned as she felt the hard bulge of his desire. He pulled her hard against him to kiss her passionately, his tongue—_

*rustle, rustle* Annoyed with the noise, the teenager looked up, expecting to find some stray cat had wondered inside or something equally trivial- he knew for a fact only him and Naruto were occupying the room, and he felt no additional presences on near vicinity-and stared incomprehensively at the little boy going through his traveling pack unconcernedly. It was at that moment, that Hatake Kakashi realized he was sitting on a log.

'Naruto? '

'Yes?' the blond was pushing back his clothing, without seeming to care that he was messing it up or that he would have to fold them all again if he wanted to be able to close the damn thing. Of course, five years old often did such thing. What they didn`t do, however, was what this particular five-year-old had done.

'I`m sitting on a log.'

The blond stopped what he was doing to smile at him with that closed-eyed expression of foxy content. It made him think of when a cat got attached to you and brought you the carcasses of their hunts, staring at you with these big, expectant `Well, aren't you proud? Praise me, praise me, just look at what I did!` looks. It made him feel just about as appreciative of it as he would be of a slaughtered crow.

'Why am I sitting on a log?' The younger blond grinned even more and rubbed the back of his head self consciously. 'That`s Kawarimi no jutsu. You shouldn't learn that technique until you are in the academy.'

Pause. More rubbing of the back of the head, less grinny this time.

'…You went to spy on the academy again?'

'Eh…hehehe, hey, hey, Kashi-'

'Don`t 'Kashi 'me. Don't ever 'Kashi' me again. How long have you known this technique?'

Why? Why did these things happen to him? It was at this moment that Kakashi decided God didn't exist. No merciful God would allow a child such as Namikaze Naruto to learn the replacement technique until he was at least ten. Normal people would be proud he could do such a thing just from watching, but they wouldn't know what he'd be capable of doing with it.

There was no stopping this kid now. Short of placing a tracer on him (which they'd tried, several times) he would be unfindable. And Naruto had this uncanny ability to find the most dangerous thing to do in a thirty kilometers perimeter and head straight for it!

'I`m… dead…' While his nanny had a breakdown and muttered in a corner, the blond decided to give the older boy some privacy to be traumatized to his heart's content and went back to rummaging through the backpack until he found what he needed, skipping back to the jounin with his hands behind his back.

'Hey, hey, Kashi, do you know where Gaara lives?'

'What? No. No, you can't go there. Sensei said you couldn't play with him.' He said, turning a narrowed grey eye to him.

'I know.' he said, still smiling foxily at him. Why was the brat asking? Expect the unexpected never managed to quite cover what this boy could amount to.

'Then… why do you want to know?'

How far did daddy say I had to stay away?' the boy asked instead.

'…at least thirty meters.' He replied, alarm bells going off in his head as the boy`s smile turned into a grin, showing rows and rows of tiny, sharp teeth. It made him look like a feral little animal.

'And how far do these go?' he asked, pulling his hands back and showing him what he had been hiding.


	4. Chapter Four: Felt it in my fist

'Hey, Yashamaru...'

For some reason, they never called him uncle. It wasn't that they didn't want to or didn't know he was, they just never done it and never had a reason to start and the man hadn't asked them to do it either. Either way, Temari looked confused, and being the resident adult in charge, it made sense for him to be the one that had to be inquire.

'Gaara still can't see anyone, right?'

Yashamaru looked at his niece, then smiled at her warmly. She had such a cute, stubborn mimic every time she was curious. She will be a strong ninja.

'Of course not, Temari-sama.' he answered honestly, readjusting the bag on his arm 'And he isn't. He is just going with us because I don't feel very secure and he can provide a good protection. Besides, isn't it nice to have a walk with almost whole family like that?'

'Um.' she made a face, looking slightly crossed, 'No, not about going out. It's just…' She shrugged. ' If he can't get visits from people… Then what about this?' she asked, holding up a dark brown pug wearing a Konoha headband from the scruff of the neck, the dog managing to look impressively unimpressed as the medic nin stared. As the silence extended, the boy finally sighed.

'What? Never seen a cute little dog before?'

'I'm sorry, I was too stunned with your beauty to say anything before.' said Yashamaru, finally letting his eyes blink and shuddering a little, shaking off the moment of awkward halt of his brain. 'Just what in the name of lords you're doing here?'

The answer was futile, as obviously a talking dog was a messenger, and messenger of something important. Too bad that Kazekage was still not back home from meeting (that should have ended by now, how odd) . But he, as a ninja, should be able to handle it. Though that could be put into question, as he didn't notice it before, ignoring it long enough for a little girl to point it out at him. He picked the 'little cute dog' up, wondering from which side it was actually 'cute' and noticed a headband. Konoha. But of course. But what kind of message Konoha could have to Kazekage, when the Hokage was with him by himself? Or could it be, that there was something bad happening in the village?

But such a small dog wouldn't be able to walk through desert and wasn't supposed to either way – messages were urgent and needed to be known in the most possible fast way – and to Suna there was only one way – through trained Sunanian's hawks. So it was probably from the Suna. And there were only two other people from Konoha stationing in Suna now. A youngster of a ninja and a blond kid… He turned around, looking in the corners suspiciously. Could it be that Gaara actually found his friend and brought him over, only pretending to be sick with sadness and disappointment? But what it could do down there when Gaara was up in his room?

He turned, and spotted something by window. Oh my. But of course. The most obvious thing on the world. Two Konohans were sitting on the top of the roof and waving at him. He should have known better, but he'd never expect it from the Hatake's son. But then, he didn't look very serious, did he? '…why are you here?' he asked warily, expecting a prank. It couldn't be anything else in that situation. 'Kazekage-sama is still not home, he is having an important meeting with Hokage-sama.'

'Huh.' the `pug said, sincerely finding that this oddly femmish male to be rather more skillful at the handling of his canine person than the female brat had. 'We know. Youngest brat convinced Kakashi to use me as delivery service. It's for the youngest Sabaku.' Reaching around to grab at something that had been strapped to his back, holding it with his teeth for the other to take. 'An wud shink they`d ush m fer shumthng mr imprtnt,' the cute little doggy murmured around the object in question. 'Nw ah gah han within mah pahs.' (one would think they`d use me for something more important, now I`ve got sand between my paws.)

Yashamaru took the object from the pets mouth and looked at it as he walked with the dog to the bathroom. Then he dumped him into the tub and glanced at it. 'Why is the Konohan talking communicator given to Gaara? I don't think that Kazekage-sama would approve of something secretive being handled to his youngest.' He murmured, then opened the tap, letting the water fall down and wash over the paws of the 'cute little dog'. He always was taught that if delivery pet wanted something it had to be taken care of if it wasn't the highest emergency – usually it took them a lot to deliver a message. Even if he doubted the fact that this time it took much effort, he decided to not question it. Pets weren't exactly human and one never knew what actually would hurt them and what not.

He walked out of the bathroom, leaving the pet alone and looked through the window, testing the communicator. It seemed to work just fine, the high scratching noises and a laughter of the blond, visible from his point of view could be heard quite clearly. 'Why don't you come over?' he said to the speaker after looking at the outside. The sun was quite high and it probably fried them quite well up there 'We've just got back from the market, I bought baklava and cacti tea, you could try some.'

Sweets weren't exactly healthy, but he promised Kankuro that he'd buy a piece and Temari whined that if Kankuro had something then she wanted to pick up a brand of tea and he ended buying them both, even if he wanted neither. The sweetened flavor was not something that Kazekage was fond of, but since it was his Desert Rose who picked it up he'd probably just drink it with grumpy face. Gaara, as usual, reached out for pieces of salt which were made from the drying up rivers in the salted area of deserts, but not much as he just kept running around so he managed to persuading him from taking it.

Good he had this bloody accident last night or he'd probably end up buying a half of that just killed camel, because it reeked of blood for good fifty meters from the shop and Gaara liked everything bloody and dead. He could say he was lucky, even if he spent the saved money on Kankuro and Temari. With the nervous atmosphere everything got a little more expensive and it would be good to actually save up but it seemed that those money weren't supposed to be kept inside this house anyway.

The pug muttered a thank you, then contented itself with lapping at the water that had been left at the bottom of the tub. Someone had to take back the walkie talkie when they were done with it. On the rooftop Naruto nearly fell over when an adult's voice came from the speaker and he stumbled over several incoherent half sentences, having no idea what he could say, before the silver haired nin took it off him with a sigh.

'Hatake here.' he said, adjusting the device and holding the brat by a hand on the forehead when the child started protesting.

'Hey, hey, I borrowed for me to talk with Gaara, not with you to talk with someone else! Kashi!'

'Forgive the brat. While we appreciate the invite, I'm afraid we cannot accept. Hokage-sama requested his son to be kept at a certain distance from Gaara-sama.'

Yashamaru blinked, then looked at device with a frown.

'Certain distance'? Could it be that both of them were actually forbidden on meeting each other? That weren't very good news to him. He'd could risk a lot by helping them there It wasn't what a good intelligent and caring adult would do. But it was so boring here, just cook and wash and stop from killing and Kazekage was also a son of a bitch…

'Gaara-sama!' he called. The redhead peaked up from the closed doors, looking at him with those impossible green eyes 'Come here, I have something important for you.'

The kid slowly stepped out, smiling a little at him, dragging this ragged teddy along and brushing his eyes like if he was sleepy. That wouldn't be a good sign if they weren't a little reddish which meant he was only crying. He waited for him to run down, sitting in one chair and looking at him. He looked so small that he was almost not reaching his age, but he could careless – demon always kept him healthy, no matter if he was hot, cold, ate too much or too little of anything. It only got dangerous when he lacked something bloody – though not for him but for everyone around. Cute kid, really.

'Here.' He said, urging him to come closer and wrapping it on his neck immediately, not even letting him ask 'I think you will like it.'

Gaara looked at him questioningly, poking at the button, making it quieter. He adjusted the ear device and picked him up, getting him on his knees.

'And now I'm going to read a newspaper and you will accompany me.' He said, plugging the communicator in, while the redhead frowned at him with even more puzzled expression. The face mimics changed immediately, looking at him with shock and he shot back a sweet smile he always gave off to everyone. Sometimes it was too easy to please kids, even such ones as Gaara. 'Come on, talk to teddy, just don't bother me, I'm reading.' He said, picking up some older newspaper and looking at it, not seeing a word. He had to be aware of what were they speaking about, just in case. It was never too wary with the youngest Sabaku.

The redhead readjusted himself on Yashamaru's knees, hugging the plush close and glancing with shiny eyes at the newspaper, his cheeks pink from excitement. He never got such a call from anyone! And who was it? He recognized that laugh, of course. And he thought that the blond forgot about him… He glanced at the newspaper again and tightened grip on the brown skin of teddy. He didn't know why or how the blond got a hold on the line and Yashamaru was letting him use it, but he couldn't let such chance go. He breathed once, twice and finally spoke up, his voice shaking from the thrill: 'Naruto?...'

'Gaara? Gaara! Gaara, look, I'm SO SORRY-' There was some static and a voice from the background saying he should modulate. It was followed by a very long bout of talk from the blond, at a speed that would make a hamster on crack jealous.

'I know, I know! Listen Gaara, I'm sooo sorry about yesterday, daddy made your dad really mad and he tried to kill him and then I feel asleep and then daddy said I couldn't come because dad doesn't want me to and then Kashi tied me up and then I had to think up how to meet because we couldn't really meet and I told Kashi to let me borrow to communicator and he didn't want to and I had to convince him because he didn`t want to so I told him I would tell dad that he went to that house with the red lamps daddy doesn't want him to go until he's eighteen-'

There was a shriek and the sound of a struggle that lasted the better part of a moment, the figures on the rooftop disappearing from sight, save from some flailing limb that appeared every now and then. Finally, the blond child raised again to sit on the edge of the roof, grinning widely. 'Sorry- and then Kashi finally decided to let me have it and now we can talk like this. It's okay, right?'

Yashamaru looked at the back of the red head with a sweatdrop, newspaper in his hand forgotten. Was this kid actually drinking a jumbo jet of coffee? He acted like if the words weren't made to be separated by simple space and was almost impossible to understand. But Gaara listened to him, holding his breath, like if everything of this incoherent babble made more sense and was even more exciting than the tale about Aladdin or quests of Scheherazade. Even the current break in transmission didn't wipe the pinkness from his cheeks and that very, very weird expression he never saw him wearing, not once in childhood.

Gaara was flowing with happiness. Freaky. 'It's all right, we've been waiting for you.' He said in a quiet, but peaceful tone as he hugged the poor plush even tighter, getting it a little closer to the speaker 'Teddy says hello and thankies for calling.' And then he giggled a little and looked at him with an excited smile. He didn't know how to actually respond to that, but it seemed to be less of importance to Gaara as he looked in front of himself again and started dangling his legs. It seemed that all grudges were forgotten now.

'It's bad you can't come. But I will tell you how it is like so you'd see and feel like if you could. Do that too, okay?' He said and laid back a little more, looking into the hallway 'Now I see a clock with two minutes till three p.m. …' he said, and looked at it a little longer, wondering what to add to make it look just as special as it should be for Naruto who couldn't see it. ' I think it's a pretty clock, even if it's not painted.' he said and smiled to the golden pieces of it 'Because it shows a happy hour.' Yashamaru sighed and laid back, leaving the newspaper forgotten on the table. This will be a long conversation…

#+#+#+#+#+#

Ninja didn't really aim to fight for hours with a target. Sometimes it happened, of course, if the enemy was particularly skillful or the circumstance particularly catastrophical…. but idealistically, a mission consisted on getting in, slash throats and get out before anyone noticed. Sparring was better fit to analyze what you were doing wrong and see how to correct it, and to improve stamina, speed and techniques. The problem with friendly sparring was that you had to actually hold back to make sure you didn't accidentally murder the friend you were sparring with. That meant that you didn't use as much force, and as such it was harder to knock your opponent unconscious or the ever sought after instant kill that was so appreciated in the world of the fine arts of a shinobi.

He had no idea how long they were at it, because he had been too busy trying to think up strategies as the sun beat down on the both of them and Daichi beat down on him, his resistance to it being much more developed than his own. It didn't matter that the cliffs here gave some shelter from the sun, as the stone accumulated the heat and was at best warm to the touch, if not scalding hot. He knew, he'd gotten a nasty burn on the cheek when a hot pillar had been kind enough to cushion his impact after a particularly nasty kick from the local lord of the land. He had stopped sweating at some point, his body finally realizing that wasting water that way would be suicidal, and that particularly swimmy sensation associated with nausea had disappeared after a while, probably for the exact same reasons.

On the good side, now at least he knew that if he died from a heart attack before his time, it would be because he'd been an idiot and challenged Daichi, not because Naru was in a life-threatening situation. Again. All in all they'd fought until they literally couldn't stand anymore, and then sort of carefully (very, very carefully, almost elderly-like) they climbed down where at least there was some shade from the sun and tried to catch their breath. He must have blacked out for a few moments, because even though he still felt his heart beating irregularly fast, there was a wonderfully damp cloth covering his face and he knew he hadn't put it there himself.

'I was resting my eyes.' he muttered, his voice muffled by the fabric covering his face he couldn't bother to remove yet. '…just so you know.'

'If that so…' said the Kazekage smirking and opened the bottle of water he was holding and started drinking up greedily '…then I assume you're pretty fresh and you can go on with fighting without a gulp of water. ' Then he held up half empty blue object in his hand and shook it in a fake offering while he started drinking it up again in much slower space. Oh yeah, he loved doing that.

He tired the hell out of the blond and he knew that he did, even if it cost the hell of his own strength too. Fire ninjas were very skilled when it came to quick slaughtering and calculations, but it were wind ninjas which were patient and had a lot of stamina. Though he couldn't help but wonder where on his body wouldn't be some violet or blue place tomorrow. 'I thought you actually were pretty dead up there, I was wondering if not to leave you to some dingo to actually have a meal…' he said and started laughing. At this point of the day no living being would even look out from the hiding for a piece of meat, only the most desperate ones. And currently they were having a rather good year, not many of them showed up frequently.

Then he looked back at Minato and threw a bottle with the rest of the water at him, feeling the irony of fate, how it usually came to this he was the one spoiling the brat with liquids when at the first meeting he was the one to get it from the blond and laid back on the sand with a heavy thud. 'I guess I'm pretty dead too.'

'I'm not dead, Daichi-kun.' the Hokage said, one hand reaching up and catching the bottle, even if he didn't drink from it yet. If he did, he wouldn't stop and then he'd throw it up, and he refused to waste water like that. 'Dead people don't hurt all over like I do.'

He tried to straighten up, and then decided it wasn't a very good idea. After a few more seconds, he rolled so he was on his stomach and got up with considerable more ease, despite his body protesting in neon lights with bright capital letters. 'At least I got you to smile.' He said, smiling at the older man and sitting closer. 'Are you feeling better?'

'Besides that little fractures over my whole skeleton then yes, I'm feeling like if I was in heaven already. Almost see the Pearly Gates.' taunted the Kazekage, looking at the blond, not daring to move an inch of his body for a millimeter, not protesting at the blond getting closer or not drinking the water. He was too worn out to actually defend himself now and think how could he show up in a few days on a spectacular grand opening of the theatre and look like a human 'What gave you this sudden idea I was feeling bad?'

He wasn't, really. Or maybe he was? He didn't know. Since Gaara was born, he hadn't got many reasons to actually be happy about and he lived in non stopping stress over the fact that people were killed under his nose because the milk was too hot or the light was too bright. It already felt like if he didn't have any other life besides that and he couldn't particularly remember if there was something like happiness without the constant feeling of danger creeping at him with every small difference thrown at him from fate. He closed his eyes, letting go of everything for a moment and smiled lightly, though a small vertical line bruised his forehead like a cloud on a spotless sky.

The blond shrugged lightly, one arm resting on a bent knee as he leaned back on the massive boulder directly behind them. "I guess you just seemed slightly down to me.' The Sabaku no Daichi he knew usually had an angry frown of his face, a smug little smirk or a wide, carnivorous smile that made one wonder if he was pondering what kind of flavor their raw meat would have. So when the older brunette looked thoughtful and bordering on depressed, Minato felt he was entitled to worry.

'Why should I smile? Only fools laugh at life for they have nothing else to do and I'm leading a busy life...'

'Well, usually when you look at people, you have this glint in your eye…' The younger male made a rather artistic flourish with his hand to strengthen the impression 'Makes you look like this prehistorically creature that's wondering what their fleshy meat tastes like. 'Today, you almost looked like a retired vulture. Depressing, really.' He finally opened the bottle and took a sip. It made his body remember he was supposed to be 80% water and he was currently down to like, 16%. He put the cap back on before he decided to choke on it all.

'Oh, many things are worth smiling about, Daichi-kun; like….' The younger male made an artistic flourish with his hand to strengthen his words. 'Your… relative youth. This majestic, never-ending visage of sand and rocks and sun… and more sun and rocks and sand. And sun. The meeting scheduled for tomorrow, where your councilmen will doubtlessly produce some other three hundred-something reports for us to go through…These beautiful purple and greens spots that have been swimming in front of my eyes for the past five minutes…'

The Hokage sighed, blinking lazily. Even his eyelids hurt.

'…and last but not last, my very own charming self, willing to stand under this hellish sky and allow you to work out your frustration by pounding my internal organs in fun, squishy shapes.'

He looked back at the older man, wondering if what he had decided to try to do would be the right answer. He didn't have any other ides, so there wasn't much to choose from, but what he feared the most was placing his son in danger. He wouldn't have done it before the nine tails attack, no matter how much he trusted the current Kazekage, but after it… he had learnt that the priorities he had weren't always the right ones. 'Dai, I didn't bring you here just so you could therapeutically torture me to regain your spirits.'

'I suppose not.' Said the Kazekage, still not moving an inch, not even changing his mimic, though the line on his forehead twitched suspiciously, deepening an ounce. Well, he didn't really expect Minato to just be friendly and wanting to lift his humor up after all, did he? He haven't seen him for a long span of time and it was obvious there was always something more to say, some things untold, waiting to blow up the cover and look outside with eyes full of mischievousness or remorse. He didn't know if he looked like a vulture or not, but the idea of actually ridding of Gaara…

…now, that he thought of it…

He opened his eyes, frowning deeper, slowly erasing the smile from his face. The desert sky was spotless and bluish like the most beautiful turquoises and sapphires mixed together.

But he spotted a hawk. Not a ninja one, he was flying too carelessly, but even that was a graceful trace. 'Do you think…' he said out loud, but then shut his mouth. It was not a matter of anyone what he did with his own kids after all.

'Oh, you're too gracious, Hokage-sama.' said the Kazekage, still not moving an inch, not even changing his mimic, though the line on his forehead twitched suspiciously, deepening an ounce. 'You just want me to beat you so badly because you realized how many mistakes in the past you did and now you want me to give you a good absolution.'

He smiled wider and slowly opened his eyes. Purple and green dots, eh?... He always saw dazzling yellow ones. And now he could count some. It was probably the best time to get up and move out of the frying pan which would probably stay that way for quite a long time from now on.

'Sadly, to get that you'd have to do many worse things and I doubt that even then you'd be any more pure than now…' His elbows were heavy and getting up only on that level was extremely hard, his limbs feeling unused and sleeping in the sickening silence of the desert. He'd probably have to carry Minato. It will be a long journey back… He closed his mouth and looked down, musing over words that could be said here, but not many suited and even less seemed appropriate. Not that he wanted to sneak out of this. Sometimes it was unthinkable to think about doing that.

'Thank you.' he said the only thing that was left and lowered his gaze even more. A habit of feeling humiliated even if the words were nothing but act of pride still took the best of him.

The younger blond stared at the other surprised in slight surprise, then smiled.

'Absolution, huh?' There was something odd about the way he said the word, as if it were an exotic fruit that he wasn't very sure he liked the flavor of. Minato was an odd person. He had always been kind and polite with everyone, and it was only after a while that people close to him noticed how superficial that kindness was. When he did get close to someone, he tended to want to show he cared by doing things that could often be described as bizarre, usually because the individuals he chose to get close to could only be classified as such.

He took another careful sip of water.

'I could use some of that.' Minato smiled. But when you knew him long enough, you learn that didn't really mean a thing.

'I have things to tell you.'

Daichi looked at the smile with iron steadiness. For a moment or two he could be taken for a frozen statue as his smile vanished from his face and made him look calm as marble sculpture. But then a thick line between his eyebrows showed up in its deepest and made him move so he could face the wind from his side. Salty. It seemed that summer will be particularly dry this year. Usually salty rivers didn't get so dry to let the salt travel so close to the village.

He breathed deeper, inhaling the salt and hot wind and spoke up.

'What kind of things?' It was either a betrayal of country or a fatal disease. Minato rarely spoke about 'things' with him, he had his own friends in his own village for that. And now, when they didn't see each other for so long and just after a day he just blew off a cover like that… He expected that kind of things, but yet, he thought it would take him longer to do that. He was probably planning on getting back sooner than he announced. It hurt a little to think that he will be left so quickly with all his problems alone, Yashamaru not being a help at all – but there was nothing to be done about it.

'Several things.' He toyed with the bottle a few moments, but didn't drink from it again. 'Most of them you won't like to hear… But if it is any consolation, I don't really want to talk about them either.'

Because if he did he would have to think about things he'd really rather forget… Not that Minato would really be able to do that, ever. Too many things had changed five years ago, and would never be the same. At least it wasn't like if any of them was in any state to walk away from such a conversation.

'First of all, I shouldn't have arrived with Naruto without announcing so first. I wanted to apologize for that.'

He had been making excuses not to come to this country for the past four years, and they both knew it. When he was finally forced to come by his own council, he arrived half a day later than scheduled with his son in tow. Hardly what good politicians did, especially when it had never been implied he would be adding a child and a jounin to the group that mobilized to Suna.

Daichi looked at him again, narrowing his eyes. Now he felt like apologizing for that, after a whole day and all that happened?... Indeed, a very embarrassing situation. For Minato, not for him. When it came to him, he never took kids with himself with exception of one time where he wanted to present a new weapon to all kages and failing at it miserably.

'I don't really know what's happened.' He said, nodding his head lightly 'But I think you treat this brat like a piece of glass. He is not going to break because you will leave him alone for five minutes.' he murmured. Then he shot the blond a particularly nasty look which he always used when he sentenced people to prison or scolded Gaara. Not that he found difference in both. 'Unless of apologizing to me you should just go and split your head open over this stone.' He said, pointing at the chunk of sandstone behind them 'If you really value your son's life at least in bits of what are you implying you do… you should. You knew very well that I have a son as well.'

And that he is a living nightmare- And that nobody feels safe anymore- And that I'm not able to watch over him all the time- And that he is attracted to anything new, like any kid- And that the one who is going to take all consequences was him as a father of killing machine and not the blond as the careless father-hen. Or should he say father-cock. It suited when it was compared to the situation – Minato just didn't really THINK, just like a small-brained male chicken. But none of that was told out loud, so it swam in the air, hanged. Some things were obvious and didn't need any words. 'I'm not sorry for that you son could die.' He spat, burying his eyes in Minato's head, then finally tearing it away. 'You're alone to blame for that you brought him here.'

The blond just chuckled lightly, expression unchanging.

'Daichi, do you really think I would have brought him with me if I had felt he would be safe at Konoha?'

'I'm not sure if you thought at all.' The saffron-haired nin shot back, gripping the sand with his hand lightly. It felt hot and loose, not letting him add any pressure to it. Those were the times he hated it that he couldn't just get a hold on a piece of rock when he wanted to. 'You all are like that – hot-headed, loud-mouthed… and just crazy.' he said, though the light tone held in Minato's voice kept his attention. If anything was fake here, it was the pose. Minato was seeming to be breaking through something more than being lighthearted. But he kept on stoic, clouded expression and the oblivious path in his words. Sometimes it was better not to act on symptoms.

'I thought those were traits a Suna shinobi would appreciate?' the younger man said, laughing a little. Daichi was always unpredictable when personal matters came at hand, but he was sincerely glad the older man hadn't just gotten up and walked away by now. Maybe it was because he didn't really feel anything could justify forcing sore muscle to start working so soon after torture, but Daichi was just stubborn enough to do it anyway. Minato felt entitled to feel he was staying because he was listening to him. 'You did get along better with Kushina than me.' Back when she had been a tomboy of indeterminate sex and Daichi a demon of the sand everyone was afraid of. 'I knew about your son. Yet I brought Naru...'

Kazekage gazed at the blond, his intense glare slowly started mixing with sheer realization of where it could go, not exactly of where it was going. He quickly got up from the sitting position and looked at the blond, frightened. He wanted to say something, but it seemed that it wasn't the time for it. He looked away, closing his eyes like if he was feeling the air, even if no wind blew in that dry humidity which wavered the image and made the air dance before very own eyes. 'It looks like it's going to rain.' He murmured. 'Should we go back?'

He never spat more obvious lie, but that's what friends did, weren't they?

The younger man emitted a frankly macabre short rattle of laughter, before fixing slate blue eyes on the Kazekage`s. 'Not yet. Because… Dai I know… what you are thinking of doing. It's written all over your face.'

Daichi looked back at him, the grief slowly crept on the sides of his face. 'Minato, I haven't seen your for years.' He murmured, looking at the blue gaze 'I don't think I should be here listening to this. We are not…' He stopped, the word stuck in his throat for a moment. He always had problem with saying it out loud, the same now, the same then. '…friends anymore. I won't lend you my shoulder and I don't understand your softness. I never loved any member of my family.'

'I apologize.' Minato looked away. 'I judged your harshly before, and I shouldn't have. I won't do that mistake again. Please, explain to me what happened.'

Because when news of what Daichi had done to recreate Suna's ultimate weapon had arrived, Minato hadn't understood. He had felt and disappointed and angry at whom was his close friend, and completely disbelieving of the fact he could have gone at such lengths for something.

The letter of condolences he wrote had been exactly what he had never done to Daichi. Short, polite, and to the point. Superficial. He had been angry and he had wanted to make Daichi know he was. And he'd been so young and so stupid, because it was easy to judge others when things were easy on your side of the yard. As it turned out, he was in a prime position to reconsider his stance less than a year later. And by then, it had been too late.

The letter of condolences he got from Daichi was what could be expected in such a situation, yet there had been an attempt there. Minato hadn't been in any physical or psychological state to answer it, however. The Sandaime, who had been put back in power as an emergency measure had been the one to reply to that letter. With time he had been able to get himself to write back at the Kazekage, but he had never quite dared to say anything on regards of that, quite simply because he hadn't been able to acknowledge it.

'Gaara-sama thinks the Raccoon is Karura-san. Why would you let your son think such a thing, Daichi?'

Daichi blinked, looking at Minato with slightly surprised gaze, his fear and uneasiness gone and put away in a moment of sheer halt. So that was what Minato wanted to talk about? Uneasiness got back to him again and grew over him like a healthy bush of poison ivy. He closed this story long time ago even if he still felt consequences of it even now. It was hard to think of opening doors to those memories again. Why did Minato want to talk about this?...

'I didn't.' he spoke finally, then sighed and closed his eyes, still holding some of the air inside his lungs 'You saw me scolding him for that… it was Yashamaru. He was probably drunk then.'

He opened his eyes, staring at the sand before him with unseeing stare. 'Yashamaru is always drunk. And the brat never listens. I even took him once to the graveyard-…' He stopped, getting back to reality. Now, that was too hard to even talk about. Why did he have to remember about it so suddenly? He forgot it already… It didn't happen. 'Gaara is insane. Stay away from him.' He spoke automatically. It was always and excuse given off everywhere - he had it burned in the back of his brain. 'He just doesn't think clearly.'

'He is just a child Daichi. Children are credulous, but that doesn't mean they are insane.' Just fearful and confused and alone. Always so alone… Minato finally looked away and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and simply listening. Nothing was near. He could faintly feel the concealed chakra of Suna's Anbu, but they were too far away make out their words. When he spoke again, his voice was a mere whisper. 'I think… I could try to seal it. Partially, at least.'

The other man whipped his head, looking at Minato with sharpened gaze, but nothing beside the fear and hostility flashed through them. Seal it?... Like… nine-tails?... But…

'I'm not letting you kill my son.' He hissed quietly before he actually thought what he said. Then he caught himself and looked back at the sand with feverish, unseen stare. Wasn't he just considering killing him off this morning? Maybe that was it – an opportunity to let him lay in the coffin and let him sleep for the first time in his life? The only human that could fight beasts were kages and he didn't know if he was strong enough to bear with Gaara alone as Shukaku was a very vicious monster. But Minato killed nine-tails, which was much more frightening… he could do it…

He looked back at him, his eyes deepening till they took the murky shade of coal. Something in him felt like reaching back for Gaara right now and just getting him away from the spot, but it was just a moment, a flicker of unwanted and completely useless emotion that never helped in anything. It died like a suddenly put out burning candle. But…

'What do you mean partially?'

If it meant only half-death, he wouldn't be able to bear it. There was no life for shinobi who couldn't act like shinobi – all limbless and cracked psychically ninjas were killed off at their own command or command of their families. That's why Suna grew so strong. There were no obstacles. So either Gaara was killed to death or not moved at all. He wouldn't be able to bear the humiliation of invalid shinobi in his family otherwise.

Minato smiled at him, and this time it was an affectionate smile, not the easy, fake one he had so little trouble to produce… but it was bitter, too. He seemed much less surprised about the outburst than the older nin, and he wasn't. If the Kage hadn't cared for his child, he would have killed him by now. He wouldn't look at him the way he did. Maybe he was placing everything that had mattered to him in danger by making such an offer, but…

'Don't be ridiculous… Humans can't kill demons, Daichi. They were never alive like we are, so they cannot be killed.' There. It was said.

That caught him off guard. More, it was like a shot from a gun no one expected to shoot ever again. 'What do you mean they can't be killed?...' he asked with a faint voice, letting his posture crumble on the inside while on the outside only his gaze shook uncontrollably, the rest being still and cold like stone in the night 'But you?...'

He stilled more, settling his eyes, widening them in unspoken truth.

'You didn't kill it, did you.' he whispered, feeling like his heart stopped at the relevance. If anything, there were no worse news. Monsters called out for each other always, so the idea of nine-tails running around free while Gaara had his own beast in himself who could in a moment just get a hold on him and call it to village in the dead of the night when everyone were sleeping and- Holly kages of Suna land!...

'What do you mean 'seal'?' he asked finally, feeling how his throat dried up completely and tightened, though it had nothing to do with the warmth outside 'What did you do with it, Minato?...'

The blond brushed his burnt cheek, almost thankful for the stinging pain such a movement rewarded him with.

'I did the only thing I could do.' He answered, his voice calm. 'I sealed it in something that could be killed.'

The desert was silent around them. Daichi heard the beating of his heart. It beat fast but surprisingly rhythmical, like if he wasn't that much shaken yet.

'What do you mean?...'

Minato gave the older man a sort of wounded look, as if he couldn't understand why the other was putting him through. Why was he making him say these things.

'I mean that I was more afraid of what my own village might do to my son in my absence than what bringing him with me might cause. I can trust in my own seals. Scared people are more unpredictable…'

Kazekage stared at the blond like if he didn't know whom he saw before him anymore. He slowly opened his mouth like if he wanted to say something but he didn't and he stayed in this indecisive pose, his tongue drying out on the wind. Son?... Son?... Minato had only one child… had he?... And he brought him to the village… which meant… For some unexplainable reason his brain slowed down completely, not recognizing the facts and things surrounding him. That meant… That could only mean…

…that Naruto…

…Naruto was a host for-

He didn't know how it happened. His body moved by itself. He punched Minato across the face to let him taste the gritty side of the sand yet again. But even then he felt unsatisfied. His hand probably hurt him more than Minato felt the whole punch.

'You, youngsters…' he said, looking at the blond with bewildered eyes. For some reason he felt like if he could punch him again and again, but he didn't see any reason for that. '…you always think that you know better than older people… has my example taught you nothing?... ' he murmured, looking at the figure before him

'You idiot… didn't you know that I'd rather… I'd rather!...' He bit his lips, feeling how it bled, feeling the taste of his own blood inside his mouth. Bleeding Kazekage. Such a rare occasion.

But he couldn't hold it inside anymore. He never, ever had a one person on this world that could fully understand. He never… never could say it… Nobody understood. He was so alone before. His body betrayed him yet once again. '…I'd rather let everyone die than do this again!' he screamed finally then turned around to not see him again, to not punch the sense into that mind because it was already too late for that, to not try to save things that were long gone. He sealed the monster inside his own son! How foolish of him!

'You idiot!' he barked, looking at the wavering sand before him and somehow seeing it wavered even more. He blinked and scattered quickly, getting up on two legs, trying not to waver, not thinking about pain it brought, not even noticing it. He stood up, feeling the biting light of the sun on his skin, tightened his hands into two clenched fists and blinked. Damn rain. His mouth felt so dry when they moved on its own. 'We're both idiots…'

They were.

'Yes.' Daichi hit him, and he let him. Even his own blood tasted dry on his mouth, like if his tongue couldn't register it as liquid anymore, like if it had turned into fine powder on his veins. He could have blocked it, and he hadn't. Too much effort. Too much pain. Thoughtfully, he licked the inside of his cheek and straightened back up to a sitting position, staring after the other calmly. 'When the nine-tails attacked, we weren't prepared.'

And how could they have been? Everything had been going so well. The war with Hidden Rock had been won and they had been victorious. No one had seen the Bijuu since the first Hokage had fought with it decades ago. What had called that hellish creature to their village that night five years ago? Did it even matter now? If you spilled water in the desert, the sand would absorb it almost before it had a chance to touch the ground. And make as much a different on the thirsty grains as if t had never been there.

'The usual procedure: get the civilians out, put the shinobi to try to stop it… and all for nothing. It didn't make a difference. The thing was mad and it liked it.' If he made an effort, he was sure he would be able how the things fur felt. How the fox's poison-ridden chakra burned against his skin (those scars never faded away), tails slamming against the floor like things with minds of their own as it grinned at him. It had singled him out and he wanted to play.

'Kushina was about due and in no state to help in any way. I ordered her to go with the civilians.' He used a sleeve to wipe the smudge of blood from his lips, looking at the way the red bloomed slightly on his tunic. 'But you know how she was like. She came back.' He felt around for the bottle of water, not even knowing where it had ended up until he found it, but he have up when he realized how much his hands were shaking. He let them fall to his lap without use.

'Two days after the civilians left, sensei came to get me from the hospital.' He didn't even remember what had he been doing there, charka exhaustion, more than likely. By then, his life had been reduced to gather charka, summon Gama Bunta and fight until he couldn't stand anymore. The fox would let him go or someone would pick him up, fix his bones, get him a transfusion stabilize his charka. Rinse and repeat, over and over. There wasn't night or day anymore, just fire everywhere. 'But… I came too late.'

He wondered if anyone understood how much he hated her. She was everything to him, she was the reason he had developed that stupid jutsu, the reason he would have given anything for. And she had their son to worry about and she still came back. Stupid, selfish little bitch. How could she have done such an idiotic thing? How could she have left him alone like that? It took him a few moments before he trusted himself enough to continue, and when it did, his voice was calm and matter of factly.

'Kushina was dead, and Naruto wasn't going to make it. And that thing would have kept going at it until it grew bored with us because it wouldn't die, no matter what we did. The jutsu… The seal I had created was supposed to kill me too as backslash. It seemed… appropriate.'

'You're an idiot.' said Daichi again, but without much force. He didn't mean anything by it. Just empty words to fill the silence that buzzed in his ears and stop the soft voice of Minato bombarding him without resistance. He couldn't take it. All women were so...

'A village without Hokage.'

A son without father.

'...idiot.'

Minato shrugged.

'Hokages are replaceable. I didn't think he'd make it, either. In theory, the younger the vessel, the more chances does it have to be a successful possession. But Naruto was already poisoned by the Nine tail's chakra. I thought he'd die too. I wanted him to die and take that thing with him. And not for the village, either.' Daichi at least had had a reason. So had Minato, and he had doubted in using that jutsu exactly because of what was at stake. And maybe if he had done it at the beginning, maybe…

'I wanted it dead, and I didn't want to deal with any of it either, so I did it.'

God, he wanted to smoke. If his sensei had been around, he would have hit him just for getting him to start to do it. "I woke up some months later. I wasn't in any state for… anything, really.' He didn't actually remember almost anything from that year until he had been released from the hospital. 'Sarutobi-sensei kept Naruto most of the time. He only told me he was still alive when I was released.'

'I wouldn't touch him. But I guess you know that already.' The first time he had been told he had gone into hysterics and started screaming how could they have allowed such a thing to still be alive. That was what hurt the most. How angry, how scared he had been of his own son. And if he had been within range, he would doubtlessly have killed it. 'I just… didn't know how the seal would have worked. I thought it would be it wearing my son like a suit.'

It wasn't hard to imagine that when they gave him the baby it would have red eyes, like the fox. They'd stare at him in their infinite madness and power and say I won. In the end you lost everything and I still won, mangy little human-

Daichi snorted, still not facing the blond. He saw Naruto running, smiling and playing like a little kid – it was rather obvious it was not a nine-tails. Nine-tails wouldn't just glare at him, nine-tails would claw his throat out. He blinked again, feeling even more soaked. Damned rain. Why did it have to rain right now?... Villagers probably didn't know about it, they missed the opportunity to get a hold of it… 'How lucky of you…' he whispered under his nose 'I envy you…'

The last words were only mouthed, not even a faint whisper was let out on the heat. Oh, now he did. Oh, how he did.

Minato didn't understand everything here. They weren't exactly the same. First thing after Gaara's birth was him getting a hold of the baby. To check if the experiment was alive at all, to see if it was breathing… He'd never forget the stare of golden black that drilled holes in his head and sharp teeth no newborn was supposed to have as it smiled at him with a smile that undeveloped muscles had no rights to make. A few seals later that he made more out of a reflex he had as kage, his mind being still blank from the shock, he saw blue eyes of a newborn that later, as Gaara grew, turned into fine green. But just then he saw it pretty clearly, like never before in his life. Karura did not give him a son.

Shukaku took both Karura and Gaara from him. The thing he nanny-ed like crazy for its whole life was Shukaku wearing his son's skin, imitating what would it do if it was a real baby. And it hurt to see what kind of smiles it would have if it was actually alive. It hurt to see it crying and then lashing out at people like a wild animal that once hurt – yowled and bit back. Like if he couldn't just sit and cry like a normal kid, waiting for the comforting. It hurt to think it would've maybe be a normal human and look into features of his wife here and wonder. Sit and wonder. Wonder. It was a torture. Experiment has failed.

He didn't dare to look back at Minato. What he said here was terrible. He understood what he could've feel, understood his fear. For the first time he understood that man was not also just a frilly happy father with dead wife. He was carrying much heavier burden there. He understood and felt even worse. How could he? How could he just do that? Gaara turned him into hateful and scowling man. And yet, Minato could've fool him – besides wrinkles, he was just happy as ever. I envy him – ran through his head and vanished. Another emotion which was not needed here. Life was cruel and there was no reason to envy anyone. He had his own luck. Minato had his own.

'And yet, you're here.' He spoke up finally. 'So the seal came out good.'

'Yes. It came out good. But I didn't know what I was doing at the time. And so much could have come out so wrong.' Daichi had no idea. He specialized in other type of jutsu, not sealing. Seals had been Minato's hobby all his life. He'd learnt them from his master and perfected them and included them in his own jutsu.

That particular seal had been half assed at beats, something he had pulled together without a specific goal, other than to seal. 'No matter the cost, take whatever you want… just seal it`, he'd told the Death God. And He had grinned at him like the Fox had. Naruto had been fine, but he hadn't know at the beginning. He hadn't been able to so much as touch the baby until he was almost a year old. It was then than Minato had been deemed fit (sane) enough to face the council, and the first thing they had told him was to get rid of it. He had refused.

And so the past years had been spent finding out exactly what he had done and how he could correct whatever could or might come wrong eventually. Naruto's seal was perfectly balanced in all its imperfections, and didn't need any kind of tempering. 'That's why I brought you here too, Daichi.'

The Kazekage shivered at the words. So many things could have come out so wrong. Of course they could go out wrong. It was a demon, not a mortal creature. The kid could've not hold it, Minato could've not have enough of chakra, the fox could've just get out of the range of jutsu – such things were always unpredictable. He shivered again, hearing the last words and lowered his gaze in despair. Oh, Minato, where were you when he got this ugly idea in his head, the powerful and happy present to his newborn, the last son who would get either no respect for being second to Kankuro and no wealth – for being second to Temari. A good pack of chakra and helpful techniques – many ninjas dreamed about it. And now…

…now there was nothing.

'What do you want from me?' he asked, already knowing the answer. 'I told you we are not friends anymore.'

'You are my friend, Daichi. The only one I have.' Because he had always had trouble getting close to people because ninjas died too easily and too young, and somehow, he was always left alone, spared when he didn't want or ask for it. 'Sensei is away, as usual. Gathering inspiration- and also checking our contacts. If Kazekage-sama were to come and help me explain what exactly we are looking for, it would be most welcome.'

'I can't make that seal again. Gaara-sama is already fused with Shukaku in a way different than what I did. But I think… I would like to talk about it with sensei first, but I do think it is possible to contain at least part of it. Enough so it will shut up.'

'What the hell are you talking about?' The Kazekage turned to the blond at last, his image older and more sorrowful than it was before, his cheeks reddened and eyes puffy from cried tears, even if the sun dried the liquid already. 'Who do you think you are, meddling with that monstrosity like if you had any rights to do anything? Your offer is outrageous Hokage-sama.' He turned fully, showing his bare chest and bloodied tunic around his legs on the front.

'It's my monster and mine alone, and I'm alone going to take punishment for the sin I created.' He spoke in a calm, gravy voice, slowly frowning 'Why do you talk about it like if there was anything to save, Minato?' His chest rose and fell down quicker, his heart beating unsatisfactionary fast, his frown deepening into grim and despairing mask. 'There's nothing to seal partially, there's nothing to shut up! It's either killing the whole body or getting away from him. Because!...'

He gulped down the saliva, feeling how the pressure added to his head, making it hurt above nostrils in this blinding heat already. Face it. He had to face it in such times. He hated doing it.

'…Gaara's gone!' He swallowed a breath. 'And all that's left is an empty shell for a monster he became so you have no right to just go and take that away from me. You have your illusions, I have my mirages. Don't judge me by the same mirror.' He turned around again and picked up his scattered, now half-sanded Kage's robe. It felt so soft between his fingers. Almost like if it wasn't there. 'And if anyone is going to destroy it, it will be me. No sooner or later Shukaku will be shunned away. I'm going back to the village.'

Then he started moving. He told too much already, but he didn't have anything else to say. He only hoped the blond wouldn't tell everyone that the monster running around is just Shukaku wearing a human skin. That would make even more panic in this fear-driven people than it did now. Sometimes illusions made everything easier. It wouldn't be good to destroy them at all.

'Daichi… Dai!' Minato forced himself to get up, despite his body telling him he shouldn't get up and much less forget where the hell was his water. The hat and cloak secondary. He caught up with the older man as quickly as possible. 'Dai, listen to me, will you?'

Oh, God, he hoped the older man would listen, because if this even started to look like a struggle, the Anbu would be here in no time, and he couldn't speak about it with anyone else near. 'Naruto said that Gaara-sama and Shukaku are two different things. He can tell because of the Fox- I know it's easier to think about it like that, but… isn't it worth to try, at least?'

'Shut up! Just shut up!' The other man stopped dead on his tracks and looked at the blond bewildered, his teeth bared in a dangerous scowl, palms curled into fists, his chest rising in a rapid tempo. 'I don't care what your six years old brat is telling you! He might be a vessel but that's it and I'm not handing my son to you because a kid with short attention span is telling you he found a human there! Ever thought that it might not be your Naruto speaking? Demons always call out to each other!'

The sun was blinding him as he was looking at the blond, but he couldn't help it. He blinked and narrowed his eyes, letting them water and mingle with real tears – rain – not caring anymore about the loss of water and all those things. 'Nine-tails always hated one-tail and the feeling was mutual so I wouldn't be surprised if he just wanted him dead.' He muttered bitterly 'Maybe you go and give a try to everything you think is good, I'm not like you. Older balding people just get to be more careful than hot-blooded youngsters.'

Then he turned again and moved toward village one more time. What was he seeking for, forgiveness? Or what? Politics probably!... Suna without the monster was not a threat anymore and it was a poor a coldblooded village everyone wanted to get rid of. He would not allow that.

If there was any moment in his life that Minato came close to seriously wanting to kill the older man, this was it.

'Naruto doesn't like Shukaku, Daichi! He likes Gaara but Shukaku scares him. And if it were the Fox, I would know. How can you think I could confuse my son with that thing?' He didn't. he just wanted to make him stop talking. Stubborn bastard. How could he be so fucking stubborn bastard, give up before even trying-!

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down until he no longer felt like beating the brunette until he ran out of teeth to knock out.

'… I didn't come to Suna for this, Dai. I wasn't even planning to tell you this, and I won't insist again.' He slowly undid his way, picking up the canteen, and then his discarded clothing, dusting the sand off it. 'I can't promise you it will work, even if we try it… but I want to do it. It is worth a try.'

He stopped, staring down at his hat for a moment, a small frown on his face. The frown depended second by second, until he finally just tossed the hat, hitting the shorter man squarely in the back of the head. 'And don't tell me we are not friends anymore! Who the hell you think are to decide that kind of things on your own? Imbecile!'

That was too much for Daichi. He made a hand seal and appeared before Minato and just lunged at him, punching anywhere he could reach, not really caring if he could kill or not. 'Don't. Ever. Throw. Things. At me. Again!' he howled, not containing his anger anymore, letting it all go, letting all his sorrow go, letting all of his reasons go – he just couldn't bear. He was on the verge and Minato pushed him on the wrong side.

'You stupid brat! How dare you say it's not for me to decide when it was you who left me to face this damnation alone! You say we're friends so you've forgotten already what's happened, didn't you? I was handling this monster, this inhuman being, my life turned upside down and all you could send me was a LETTER and so formal one I felt like if you punched me in the face! I wanted the best for my kid and I was assured it would go right, I was tempted despite the risk and I failed, but then everyone were to judge me like if they had rights to do that and turned around, leaving me alone to face it! And you also did that, so now, when you learned on my mistakes you suddenly show up and say we're friends? Even if you threw away my hand I gave you through the same way – by the letter!'

The sand flew around them as he hit the loose surface, it got to his eyes, to his ears and to his nose as he rolled them around, making the fight looking more like a childish bickering with fists instead of anything glorious between two leaders of the villages. Not that they had much chakra left to make it any better.

'If you didn't want to tell me then why the hell you did? I'm not going to pity you for I think you were brave enough and stupid enough to go through that but don't get me into that again! I heard exactly the same thing when Gaara was supposed to be born! 'I can't promise it will work, even if we try it but it is worth a try', and you know what? I say screw you, because if there's even the smallest possibility that Gaara is alive there somewhere I'm not going to disappoint him as a father again by raising false hopes and dealing with consequences! I hate him for what he is but I don't want to hate him more!'

More punches, some hitting, some not.

'So just shut up, you stupid kid with a crown on the head! My life is nothing like you think and you quit it by yourself so don't bargain back like if I was the drive-thru on your way back home! I'm the damned Fourth Kazekage of Suna! And I hate this life but it's mine, and mine alone and I will not back down even if you all just decide to spit on me! You hear me? I won't let anyone hurt my damned kids ever again!...'

With the last words the bloodied fist collided with the sand near Minato's face and shivered as he rolled back to his side, swallowing his tears and actually sobbing out everything he could not say anymore. Gods, it was so hard to close the gates once the waterfall flooded in. His pride finally broke down. He cried openly and he didn't care.

'What? Are you done bitchslapping? You bitch, you idiot, you bastard, you- Aw… fuck.'

He rubbed at his face, smearing dirt, sand, blood, and whatever the hell else it might be covered in, he didn't even want to know and let the man cry in peace. Knowing Daichi he probably hadn't in years.

'…I'm sorry. I would have come, but I couldn't. I spent most of the first year in the hospital and drugged off my ass. And then… I just didn't dare leave Konoha. It wasn't you, Dai…. I just couldn't say it.'

He didn't try to push him away or pull him closer, and didn't say anything else. He just put a hand on his head a moment, ruffled the saffron stands and left it there. 'You always were my friend.'

The statement worked miracles on the Kazekage. The sudden outburst of tears stopped just as quickly as it came – the body shook only with dry sobbing for a moment or two longer. Daichi closed his eyes. When was the last time where anyone touched his hair?... Oh, right. It was just the previous day, the sudden attack of Minato's affections in front of other people. So humiliating. And yet, he just let it lay there, not bothering to throw it away like he usually would.

Ah, sweet mother earth of this land. Thanks to its dryness and thanks to the cruel sun making the only pure lovemaking to theses lands his tears were no more on his face, dried up and swallowed by greedy ground. He breathed on it. No, no salt. Just sand and stuffed nose. He proceeded the words of the blond in his head thoroughly, then he did it again, listening to muffled beating of his own heart and sickening silence of the sand grounds. Surprisingly, no ANBU get out to get them. Should he worry or fire them out?...

Now was not time for this. He opened his eyes and slowly got up from the laying position, not daring to face the blond yet. 'I'm sorry, I lost my cool.' He muttered, dusting himself off for a moment. He breathed once, twice and turned to Minato, trying to look as dignified as he could, though he probably failed at it on the whole new level of failingness. Kazekage level. Then he smiled a little. 'You look like a very dirty desert snowman.'

He said and chuckled weakly.

Gods, he just couldn't say more. Words were failing him and left him in the state of feeling silly and teenagerish. He felt like if he cried rivers and had no more sorrow to actually act even seriously.

'I know that it's hard to respond to such letter but I didn't know you were that shy. ' he taunted, then leaned forward and smiled mockingly 'You could at least write in which room are you held, I could come and let you of your… closet.' He stated, then leaned even closer, dangerously breaking the line of where any of male friends would get close, and especially friends and family. Then he stopped just an inch of doing something inappropriate and smiled wider.

'Well, you look like an old man making awkward sexual advances and I don't rub it in your face.' He said without any real bite on it, smiling back at the other and only wincing lightly as the poke pushed against what would be a nice bruise in a couple hours. He really would never understand Daichi. It wasn't the first time he said and did something like that, (whatever that had been and however he was supposed to interpret it to be) and he had never really been sure if he should take it as something serious or not, or what the other expected of him on that regard. He had never pushed him away at such instances because he had never really known how to react.

And the idea on itself wasn't unpleasant, just weird. It was a sort of unspoken thing that happened once every blue moon or so and as such Minato treated it as most things that confused and unsettled him. He stuffed it gagged and bound in a little box and kicked it in the deepest corner of his mental equivalent to an unused basement. Yeah, Konoha's Yondaime was a prime example of shinobi emotional training working at its best.

'You're it.'

The redhead pushed the blond by his forehead, pushing him on the sand as he quickly scattered on his feet and ran a few meters like a little kid. Gods, he was too old and too beaten for a game of tag. But gods, why not when he felt so stupid and so scattered like now? And besides, no more things should be talked like that in the open. Sands had ears after all.

Tag. Why not? What was a little more torture under the sun and mistreatment of muscles that had done nothing to deserve such abuse if it meant Daichi was back to his cocky, insufferable self? Chakra to his feet – he wasn't going to convince them to move in any other way- he forced them to action, catching up with the shorter man and returning in kind, his smile back to what is usually was. 'No. You are.'

The man stumbled a bit, his legs not supporting him just as well as they should've, but he regained his position quickly, smirking, wolfish smile playing on his lips like a predatory smirk. Then he ran forward, falling through the sands and blinding sunlight with a battle cry followed by a couple of loose laughs. His muscles didn't want to cooperate, but the sand was at his mercy and pushed his feet with ease, making him feel like if he ran through the plain asphalt street, so he caught up quickly and pushed on the blond's shoulder, making him almost trip over the sands.

'You're more!' he shouted and ran forward. For some reason he felt the indecisive mixed emotions of ANBU who probably didn't know if to jump in or not, but he decided to play as long as he could if he was not interrupted. Ah, good old plays brought back memories. He felt refreshened.


	5. Chapter Five: Who let the dogs out

Kids were definitely the most annoying of creatures on earth. How could anyone else stay hours talking through a communicator and describing what they liked to do to their tiniest detail? Moreover, how could they not have run out of things to talk about yet? Currently, both kids were discussing almost on top of the other – well, Namikaze brat was - on regards of what food was tasty (the epic battle miso ramen vs. salted tongue, and personally, he agreed with Sabaku brat) and it seemed like most topics they had talked about, this one would extend some good few hours, with only a small pause where both Konoha shinobi had left so that Kakashi could get an umbrella and something to drink for the blonde brat.

Femmish male had given him something to bite on as he waited (five hours was pushing it too much), and Sabaku`s female mini-me (because if that girl hadn't inherited the worst traits of the family's patriarch, he'd eat his own tail) had come and questioned him a bit on what kind of messenger he was, and youngest brat talked on and on and on with Naruto about anything and everything without a pause appearing to happen in between. Yet, as far as Pakkun was concerned, the only one who was normal and even reaching a genius level was the middle kid, who had come to retrieve him from the bathroom and asked him to pose for him.

Sure, he only drew stick figures with fat little oranges in the places he bent (something he called `ball-joints, how cute), but the kid was what? Six? He couldn't exactly expect a masterpiece from him. And that he had chosen him as the subject showed he already was well into the path of an artist. He was stretching after his fifth pose and about to ask the kid if he needed another one when his sensitive noise caught a whiff of something that made his cute little doggy heart stop for a second.

'Oh no. Oh nonono!' Scrambling on the linoleum and not moving an inch during several nightmarish seconds (linoleum, the natural weakness of any ninja dog), he finally got enough of a friction on the thing to propel himself forward, racing through the house to the kitchen and starting to run in panicked circles around the youngest Sabaku. 'Give it back! Give it back! Right now! There's no time for goodbyes, just give it here-!'

He barely waited for the wide-eyed kid to remove the thing from his head before ripping it from his hands and running outside through the window- landing right at the feet of the object of his fear. 'Why,' Oldest Namikaze brat cooed, reaching to pick up the messenger by the scruff of his neck. 'If it isn't Konoha's *cutest* little doggy. What could he be doing visiting my fellow kage`s home?'

One would think a person like Minato cooing would be something almost cute. No. No it wasn't. It was scary and traumatizing and the thing nightmares where doggies were horribly murdered were made of. Actually both him and the Kazekage looked to be coming out of a particularly violent nightmare themselves. And he didn`t like the way shortie there was looking at him like one bit, either.

Being the brave dog-nin he was, Pakkun did the only thing one would do in such a situation.

'They made me do it!' he yelled, kicking his short little legs fruitlessly and pointing at the roof. Youngest Namikaze, who was apparently trying to convey something apparently funny to the redhead from his spot in the roof, noticed the commotion and finally looked their way, letting a little shriek and dropping to the floor, leaving only Hatake standing to stare at his sensei in his usual calm way. Apparently decided to join the fad, Kakashi pointed to the hiding blonde.

'It was them! I had nothing to do! I'm just the messenger!'

Dropping the doggie in the floor (who considered itself very fortunate until he realized he had been left directly in front of the glaring Kazekage) Minato took a few steps in the towers direction and beckoned his son.

'Baby.' he called. 'Lovely~ come down here a moment, will you?'

A head full of messy blonde spikes peered over the border of the roof cautiously, before deciding that tone couldn't mean anything good and was just better to comply, slowly straightening before letting a huge sigh and starting to climb down the building. 'Baby, daddy could have sworn he told you to stay away…'

'I was thirty TWO meters away!' blond cried, holding up two fingers as if that made all the difference in the world. 'You said thirty and I was thirty TWO, two more than what you asked and-' it was at that moment that Naruto was close enough to realize that despite the pristine conditions of the cloak he wore, the Minato underneath was in very different conditions. 'Daddy!' running to his father, Naruto clutched at his own shirt nervously before turning to glare at the Kazekage, placing himself firmly in front of the taller man as if to protect him. 'What did you do to my daddy?'

The saffron haired man glared at the blond kid from high above. His light mood from before disappeared without a trace and felt like if it never happened – and even if, like if it was a distant dream from ages before. The sole idea of breaking the rules by Gaara was hard to bear, but the fact that the kids of Hokage were doing such careless things in their absence was adding a whole new level of scary to all this. The dog itself didn't interest him, though it might be a good thing to start on doing something, though it was not messengers fault for whom sent the message. So he got past the shivering dog-nin and got close to the brat, looking him directly in the eye with displeasure and disgust. Then he crouched down just before him and smiled at him coldly.

Nine-tail's vessel. Who would have thought. But maybe that's why the kid acted so bold. You never really knew if the monster didn't influence the soul that was inside - if there was any soul. The Second Kazekage was known for being bloodthirsty and vicious while his whole family was quiet and kind. He could never forget the way he looked at him like a hunter who wanted to bite his head off for becoming his successor. But those were old times…

And those whiskers, really. They should have give him a clue. There was no way Minato would tattoo his own kid before it was at least ten. His smile grew more cruel.

'Nothing your dad wouldn't enjoy.' He said darkly, then pinched his nose. The gesture itself could be taken as affectionate, but it was done with just a little too much pressure and 'affectionate' was not his intention at all 'And you can thank yourself, brat – for all you did here Gaara will go on without dinner for a few days.'

Well, not really. What he planned was much more disliked by Gaara and even if he tossed him food after that he wouldn't touch it. But obedience had to be prevailed and breaking the rules – punished. He couldn't allow the monster to feel loosened up in his restrains. He looked at the blond one more time, smirking at his hostile face and got up looking at the nin getting closer to them.

'You should really kill him, Hokage-sama.' He spoke, this time without a trace of joke in his voice 'Next time he'd allow the Armageddon break loose because a kid threatened him to eat his porn if he'd not let them get close to themselves.' Then he turned around and went inside the house. 'Gaara!'

The nin looked after him, obviously not feeling too good with what he did. Seriously, he thought that everything would go smoothly – why did Pakkun not warn him before? He told him to stay on guard… He looked at Hokage and shivered.

'I couldn't help it…' he said, sweating 'And they were having so much fun… nothing has really happened Hokage-sama, I swear… nobody got hurt…'

A shrill scream of bawling protests got out of the house – the thin voice belonging to no one other than Gaara. The feverish explaining by the other adulterish voice followed, vanishing once and forth into the screaming and silenced once the sharp voice of Kazekage cut it out of the questioning. 'Silence!'

And it was all that could be understood from that distance. Kakashi felt his lips going dry. Gods, he was a dead man.

'But- that's not fair! You can't just-'

'I'll think about it.' the Hokage muttered, again wrapping his arms loosely around his kid's shoulder to keep him from doing anything drastic. The blond quieted despite himself, his hand clutching his father's pants leg at the wail that came from inside the house.'Daddy, do something!' The little blond demanded, looking up at his father with large, angry eyes. The older man looked down at him sadly.

'I can't.'

Maybe if Daichi hadn't broken down so completely, he would have tried to detour the older nin's anger onto himself, but Minato knew what the other had meant. It was obvious that Gaara was a child simply because he listened to his father, something that a tailed beats wouldn't have cared for, but if that fear and respect he felt were the only thing that kept him from being completely irrational… Boundaries had to be set.

'But I didn't disobey the rules!'

'I told you couldn't see him-'

'You said thirty meters!'

'And Kazekage-sama said he couldn't play with you, and you knew it. You disobeyed my orders and made Gaara-sama disobey his. Naru, you need to understand,' he said, tugging on one of his hands quietly. 'Everything you do has consequences.'

'But I didn't mean to!'

'I know you didn't, but that's what happened. And apologizing won't fix things.'

'But-…it's not fair!'

'It's not fair for Gaara-sama, either, Naruto.' Minato said, tugging on the boy's hand gently. 'That's why you need to think before just doing things. Consequences are never just about you.'

Minato would have done anything he could to prevent that miserable expression from so much as happening on his child's face, but this time he didn't try to make it better. Kushina had been just like Naruto, completely unable to realize the things she did so carelessly affected the people around her. And he had already lost her, he wouldn't let his baby follow her steps.

'But daddy…'

'Let's go.'

Being the five year old he was, Naruto did the only thing he could do: he followed his father, and tried unsuccessfully to hold back tears.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Kakashi woke up with a groan. The sun was up high on the sky and it shone through the pages of book on his face. For a moment he wondered about his whereabouts, then sprung up like if someone has burned him – but then he calmed down immediately. Thanks to the yesterday's scolding, the blond didn't try to escape the house and still sat in one corner, looking through some comic book that was bought in Suna to keep him occupied. He looked at the clock. He slept fifteen minutes. Well, maybe he didn't try to do it YET.

Either way he was just sitting there so he could finally relax. Though now it was quite hard remembering long and full of guilty speeches that were uttered on his head after what he did. And he didn't do a very smart thing, listening to kid. But sometimes he couldn't just help it – Naruto was so lonely all the times. Nobody deserved that cruel treatment.

He looked at the clock again. The meeting has probably ended just now and the Hokage was heading back to their room. Which meant he'd be in a few minutes back. He was ordered to keep an eye on him despite all his failures and then to handle it to Minato, having free time to himself. Almost. After pondering the blond ruler of Konoha decided that helping Kazekage in his duties was a good idea. It was told like if it was nothing but friendly help, but after hearing how angered the Kazekage was, Kakashi knew very well that if anything – that was a punishment. He deserved it, he couldn't say he didn't.

But at the sole idea of being under command of someone who thought he was not though enough and was worth being shot off made him shiver. The Kazekage would probably make him go through something only Suna ninjas were capable of doing during hard training or maybe he'd just be grumpy and itchy – all that, taken from totalitarian ruler meant the exhaustion worth a marathon. But he couldn't help it. It was an order. The door bell rang and he sighed, closing the book.

There we go.

He walked to them slowly, like if any slowing could keep him away from the punishment at least a little bit and opened the door.

'Good afternoon, Hokage-sama.'

Minato smiled - apparently that was a trick so ingrained onto himself he didn't really need sore muscles to be ordered into the common expression - they did it on their own. He still had a healthy amount of bruising, despite some basic first aid treatment Kakashi had administered. Yesterday just hadn't been a good day for him, and he would be leaving the day after. Three days worth of trekking almost nonstop, half of them through virtually uninterrupted desert. Daichi had offered to carry him and he had declined, as such a thing would have been a) impossible in the state the Kazekage was in, not that he wouldn't have tried b) unacceptable in the effort males of the species did not to appear weaker (the eternal 'who`s got it bigger', as Kushina affectionately referred to).

Then he'd had to scold his baby and watch his friend's baby get scolded by said friend; install some basics of the trust of the universe on Naruto and watch him cry himself to sleep. He had collapsed after a quick shower and slept uninterruptedly some good seven hours before waking up from the mother of all nightmares he'd had to date (and he didn't even remember what half of it was about, as he'd given it standard treatment and sent yet another bag of bones down the mental drain/basement), which had caused him to wake up Naruto to make sure his eyes were still blue, then take him to his own bed.

Naruto had asked him if Daichi had beaten him up because he had been playing with Gaara. Minato hadn't had a problem to make it to the meeting, considering he had hardly slept afterwards. Daichi looked better than yesterday, which… wasn't really much, as far as his friend went. Minato had been careful to keep things professional in front of the council and give his friend ample space. The older man tended to arrive to the right conclusion on his own if left alone enough, and he would be busy the rest of the day. Now the council wanted to check some of the scrolls he had brought with him, which meant going through twenty-one scrolls full with data and start censorshipping away anything other nations didn't absolutely need to know on regards if finances.

Joy, what a beautiful prospect with the rest of the day, At least Naruto had been unusually obedient (if you called an obviously depressed kid obedient) and he had had a nice idea to both show Daichi he wasn't being distant because of him and give Kakashi-kun something to think about next time Naruto convinced him of anything. Hopefully Kakashi would be in a state to go back on his own and he wouldn't have to carry him by the time Daichi was done with him.

'Thank you, Kakashi-kun. I`ll see to Naru-chan now, you go with Kazekage-sama.'

'Yes, Hokage-sama.' said Kakashi with a painful smile that made him shiver at the end of his fingertips. And for some absurd reason he thought that maybe, just maybe Hokage-sama had forgiven him. No such luck. So he said goodbye to the house and left with a sour expression to the Kage's house. What he saw on the place was not really what he expected. The house of Kazekage was usually not very loud, but the silence that answered when he rang the bell was more than of those desertish. But he knew that someone had to be home – the mansion was never left alone, and what about the kids? They couldn't all go out at once, right?

He called out 'hello's and 'anybody's home's for few times, then climbed up to the windows. He saw a boy, Kage's older son, sitting in a corner and doing some kind of a sculpture in wood, something that suspiciously reminded him of Pakkun. For no reason. He knocked on the glass, calling out for him to open him up, but the boy only came close, glaring at him like if he was an awful kind of worm and closed the curtains. No such luck here, it seemed. He got to the next window, spotting a girl, but she ignored him even when she saw him, so he just had to leave her. Third room was empty.

After rounding the house he felt disappointed and relieved at the same time, but he knew he couldn't just go like that unless he'd at least get sure that Kazekage was so busy he was no help for him in the very moment. He jumped down from the building, looking around, and just when he thought about summoning Pakkun again, he heard some curses. He peeked around the corner quietly and saw something that made him frown in pity.

The beaten up Kazekage, whose half of body was dark violet from bruises and the other was either scratched or being a variety between healthy brown, sickening yellow or pale and greenish stood up proudly though barely. But even beaten up like that, he still looked better than the other man laying on the floor, being beaten up in rather ugly way, spitting the bloody saliva onto the floor. Gods.

'What is it? Had enough?' taunted the older man, looking at him with disgust 'Or maybe you've learned your lesson, already? Ninny.'

Yashamaru shivered, but didn't get up. It seemed it was beyond his capabilities.

'Yes… I'm sorry, Kazekage-sama.' He muttered, his muscles tense and cracking as he still tried to rise his head 'I will never… go against… your… will… aga… again…'

'Good. And remember that. Karura wouldn't like what you did.'

The other man stilled for a moment and muttered something under his nose, but then his body gave up and he fainted on the floor. Just then the other man let his body sway a little more. But he still stood up.

'I know perfectly well what she thought.' He muttered to still body and moved, circling it and massaging his violet arm. Then he noticed him.

'Oh, Hatake-san's son.' He greeted him coldly and passed him by 'I'm sorry, I guess nobody answered your calling. My maid is currently not feeling very well, forgive him.'

Kakashi nodded, trying to not look weirded out at the show of the things and play of words. Maid? Yashamaru was a male, wasn't he?...

'Please, come inside.' He stopped, not daring to think about it anymore as the walls shadowed over him. Who cared what really happened in this family. He was not to interfere, he was on duty and an underling. He couldn't question Kazekage even if he decided to dance in a pink tutu just right now.

They stopped. The surroundings looked practically the same, beside the vase that laid broken on the kitchen floor like if it belonged there in such state. The saffron haired man just walked over it and got himself a drink, seemingly not being too interested in him, but he had no other choice. The silence stretched.

'So, you're a Konoha ninja.' started the older male once he swallowed what he drank. 'A chuunin, right?'

'A jounin.' He said, flushing under the hard glare that looked at him surprised. For some odd reason he felt ashamed. 'Just got promoted… last year.'

'Really? I wouldn't suspect. Konoha seems to be going so easy on youngsters last days.'

Kakashi didn't comment though he felt a little uneasy when he remembered all the exams and all they had to go through. He wouldn't call that 'easy' but Kages probably long forgot what was not easy at the level of chuunin or jounin. They were ages in front of them after all.

'But then I guess my job for you wouldn't be too difficult on you.'

For some odd reason he doubted that – heavily. But again, he said nothing. The Kazekage drank a sip again and looked at him with indifferent face.

'Usually we give them to chuunins to let the learn a few things about survival… but you probably had it done through already, I heard that the chuunin exam contains the survival test. Though it's probably a little different than ours. But since you're a jounin…'

He nodded, waiting for the mission to be uttered already. All this stretching words were starting to make him feel uneasy and for some odd reason he felt it was done just for that. To make him feel uneasy. Kazekage really was a cruel man.

'…then you will find no problem in watering the plants.' His mind stopped for a moment.

Whut?

Plants?

Eeeh?

But that was a mission they gave to kids in their village! Was he really underestimated so much? Or maybe he underestimated the kage? Maybe it was going to be just really easy as the man wasn't soo cruel? Or too tired to think up anything more stressing? Or-

'Here's the map.'

Eh? A map? He looked at the piece of paper. It was a map of the country. Wha…

'You're going to go on the east side and find the dots that are circled in green' said the older man with indifferent face 'Those are valuable plants that sprung out on the desert without anyone's help, but they're rare and frequently needed in our medical rooms. So we must take care of them and water them up, especially in this hot and dry summer. In the east side there's seventeen of them. Not much as this year is particularly ugly…' He stared at the map. Seventeen? Seventeen plants on the east side of a COUNTRY? But that was… that was… but…

'Excuse me…' he spoke up weakly, stopping the Kage's speech. The older man didn't seem to mind though 'But there's more points here than seventeen… and they're all green…'

The man looked at the map, like if he heard about something utterly new, frowning a little. But then his face smoothened and he took another sip.

'Ah. Those. They're oases. Emerald green, but it seems that the map already got bleached by the sun so it could be a little hard to decipher what is what… but it doesn't really matter as you will need to go by some so accidentally stumbling upon those would be helpful also. There's something above twenty of those too. Possibly, because some might've been covered by Khamsin. It was very windy this winter also…'

Kakashi felt like if his blood started getting away from his head, making him lightheaded. That was a joke, right? A big, very scary, but utterly funny joke from Kazekage's side… there was no possibility that he, a rookie jounin could do that on unknown place, with such a map, in one day…

'Watering-can is in the bathroom. Please, get it, fill it and move out. Dismissed.' Said the saffron haired man and turned his back on him. Kakashi looked at the back of the man like if he saw a ghost. Then he moved, automatically, on his own accord, still not really believing in what he heard. And… East side… of the… desert?... The door screeched incredulously high as he turned the key in them and opened it. He put a step inside and just then the high screech made him look up from the map.

What he saw was a pale redheaded youngest son of a Kazekage sitting in a flooded bathroom who looked like if he was soaked to the bone along with sand that swirled madly everywhere, not being able to get on high heights. But along the scream it all gathered and crawled in a fast speed up and formed a wild ugly face of s o m e t h I n g that was angry and was bloodthirsty and looked just at him and opened the mouth and roared along with the scream that didn't seem to stop for a moment and he stared, frozen, immobile, pale, in shock as it got closer and louder and-

…and the door got closed with a loud crack.

'Oh, I'm sorry.' Said the man with a smudge face 'Not t h I s bathroom. The one on the first floor. I'm sorry, I forgot.'

But for some odd reason Kakashi felt that Kazekage was not sorry at all. Shaken to the max he moved upstairs on a wooden legs and took the watering-can which was the size of an average one liter bottle and stumbled out, still feeling uneasiness. The screaming from the bathroom still ringed in his ears, even when it stopped. He passed it from a distance, circling it out, but even by then something heavy has banged upon it, the sand getting out from the hole near the floor and crawling toward him and crawling back once the water started getting out from there too. He watched it, horrified, and then he just ran out, feeling that the sooner he'd be out from there, the better. But once he stopped, looking at the map, he didn't feel better at all. Actually, he felt more like sobbing.

'This will be a long day' he muttered to himself, looking at the paper where all green dots laughed at him, mingling and looking exactly the same.

Very.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato was very proud of his student and very pissed at his friend. Kakashi had done as he had been told in record time for an inexperience Konoha nin… and now he was in bed with a sunstroke, a steady fever and leaving Naruto in a dejected corner of gloom as he felt it was also his fault.

'I told you to punish him, not kill him.' the blond said, his hands crossed on his chest as he glared at the brunet sitting on the chair. 'Now we'll have to stay another day for him to recuperate, I hope you are happy.'

'I don't understand what you're so angry about, Minato-kun.' Said the man, not even looking up at him from the scroll he was reading. Something about too little taxes held by people who had too much money 'I gave him a mission which I usually give on a promotion from genin to chuunin here – just walking around and pouring water on the harmless plant. No monsters, no labyrinths, no poisons and no lack of water. Even gave him a map which was pretty accurate in comparison to older ones – with every typhoon on a desert the land changes, I can't help it.' He said and shrugged. 'Never said he has to finish it in one day. Just thought it would be good to let the old gramps take a break while a youngster could run and do this for them.'

The Hokage used a finger to pull the scroll down, still staring at the older man humorlessly.

'Have I told you how evil I find you to be as of late? In case you have forgotten, you are evil.'

The man finally looked back and smirked him, the sun from his backside making his face darken a bit.

'But that's what you love about me.'

Minato chuckled a little, pulling away.

'Well, I certainly didn't befriend you for sweet and tender side, as I have yet to find it.' A joke, really. Daichi could be the most thoughtful of persons to someone he cared for …in his own brusque way, sure, but still, rather sweet. 'I have to go back. I left Naruto taking care of Kakashi-kun and he thinks he's gonna die because of him.'

'My best regards and condolences if he dies anyway.' Said the saffron haired man, his gaze lowering to the piece of paper again and getting back to indifferent mimic on his face 'It would be good to get back to times where chuunins killed each other to see some better people getting through exams, really.' He didn't comment on the joke as he knew that in every joke there was some percent of truth. He was a little harsh and he could be cruel, but so were the lands there and to rule something you had to be stronger than it. In everything – including the lack of mercy. 'I will meet you in the departing hour.'

He didn't bother defending his student - If it weren't because he was currently considering him an idiot for being stubborn and doing it all in a day, Daichi would be impressed with the younger jonin's performance.

'Bring tissues, you'll cry~' the younger man replied, grinning at the Kazekage for a moment, before disappearing with a hand seal.

The kage looked at the whirlpool of smoke and smiled to himself.

'Who knows, maybe I will.' Though he didn't believe in that. The rivers that broke loose not so long ago dried out for good. On the desert rains were never frequent. If anything – they were a miracle.

#+#+#+#+#+#

But the day, as long as it was, slowly started turning out from a hot frying pan to a still hot, but more lukewarm evening. He looked through the window every now and then to finally toss the works he had in his hands carelessly and just stare at the sun going down openly. One of many pearls of the desert were such rare moments of magic on the sky. He already saw the stars even if the sun was still very visible on the sky.

'I wonder what he is doing now…' he spoke up to himself, slowly drowning into thoughts. What was he doing, literally? He haven't seen a friend from years and he was indulging himself into a work which could be done every other dull day. Almost like if he wanted to hide from him.

Maybe he did. Maybe he did want to just do that.

Because some things has changed. He was no more of a bold young man that stared brightly into the future and Minato seemed to look just right through him. It was unpleasant. Also, the feeling of humiliation still boated around his head as he remembered spilling his guts out and listening to the similar terrifying story. He could've, they should've, what ifs and if onlys ran through his mind and made him itch and feel deconcentrated.

The silence of his office felt heavy. Maybe it was the time to break through the old habits. Sometimes it was better to go out from hiding just when you wanted to do only that. He stood up from the desk and headed to the cabinet where he held some liquors. They weren't even started as he barely had head for such things, not having time to be even dizzy as work poured onto him nonstop. But sometimes one just needed to be honest to himself.

Life was not about regrets but about chances. And he was just going to grab one of them.

'All blond's are stubborn.' He said to himself as he vanished in a swirl of sand with a handful of heavily decorated glasses and bottle with green specialty of Suna. 'But it's the redheads who are more desperate.'

And he vanished.

Minato grinned when he felt the telltale charka flare. Late, as usual, waste the whole day like an idiot, but- Dai had come and wanted to see him. His ANBU were all still on their spot- but what kind of Kage would he be if he hadn't figured a way around them the moment they settled for guard duty? Picking up his discarded clothing, he added a jacket he'd be needing soon, checked that Kakashi was still sleeping the medicine off, made sure his baby was appropriately tucked in, then disappeared with a hand seal.

'Took you long enough, jackass.' he said, taking a moment to identify his surrounding before walking to his friends 'Five more minutes and I would have gone to your house to kick you out bed for ditching me.'

Back in the suite, the covers of one of the beds rustled softly, signaling the only one thing Minato had overlooked. When your parents were ninja, the first thing all good little future shinobi learnt, was to feign sleep.

'Sorry, Mi-na-to-kun.' Was the short reply as the glass clinked against themselves 'Just had to carry out which liquor would hide the taste of poison too well for you to be dead before you recognize it.' The other man showed the bottle up, making it blink in the faint light like if it was made of the richest emeralds. 'I hope my effort will sweeten your waiting you had to go through. You know me.' And maybe for once forget the whole world. He didn't check on kids but they knew better than to disobey him. And Yashamaru? Yashamaru was sorted out too. He could drink till the dawn.

The younger man started for a moment, not really believing what the other had on his hands. 'Drinks?' he sat down next to the older man and took his glass, admiring the artwork on it. Funny how such a land of savages had so many talented craftsmen. Good old Suna, where you could kick a rock and get an ounce of gold, and yet it was almost lower in weight that its equivalent in water. '

What, didn't you have enough leaving me sore enough to cry, now you also want to make me travel through the desert with a hangover?' he sniffed what he had in his hands, then laughed. 'One has to love hospitality in Suna.'

Still… so strange. He had only seen Daichi drunk like… once. He was very careful with what he drank as he didn't really have much of an alcohol tolerance. Minato himself had been very careful never to get plastered again since his sensei had taken him for drunks when he made jounin.

'I just thought it would be good to sit down and remember some good ol'times.' Daichi still looked at his glass like if it held the mysteries to the world's secrets, but then he downed it in one gulp as he didn't pour himself too much. It felt like ice against his throat, even if it was lukewarm in this atmosphere, but that was the taste of the richest alcohol in Suna – 'Jewel of the Scheherazade' – it tasted like ice and then it burned you so much you felt like crying, but all that left you with the feeling like if you tasted the cloud, because once swallowed, it didn't leave anything but faint taste of date on the tongue.

Funny how he took out such an expensive alcohol he didn't drink after his wedding to a friendly chat with Minato. He poured himself a full cup and watched the greens of it dance in the faint light of evening. 'But I wouldn't mind leaving you with a hangover.' He murmured and smiled to himself.

Yes, he was a bad man.


	6. Chapter Six: Call me when you're sober

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step after step, foot after foot, feet together and shadow in front of him, covering the flat sand and people which looked at him and stared, backing away or running, simply running. He didn't know why. But it didn't matter.

He felt… unreal.

And it really felt like if something wanted to gnaw on him. He looked in front of himself, breathing eratedily as he felt that if he once looked back or even stopped – something would catch him and gnaw at his back – now, as he was unprotected and slow. The wet sand trailed behind him and around him, heavy with water and soaked, not letting go of it as father forbid him to let it dry so fast and it felt immobile and unable to do anything.

Something groaned in himself – his mother was upset that she couldn't protect him.

His mother…

He felt her presence, somewhere in the sand, around him, looking at him with one, two, three eyes and looking at everyone else, feeling hungry, snapping at everyone with those smiles that didn't hold a smile at all now. He moved. Step by step, wetting the ground as the sun only lightly touched his skin now and didn't dry him as much as it could. He reached up for his favorite swing. It felt good to get a hold on something. He let go of teddy and let it lay forgotten in grotesque pose of his little butt showing up the world as the rest laid in sand and sat on the swing with w e t plop and stared off into nothing. Somehow he didn't feel like swinging. At all.

#+#+#+#+#+#

He couldn't be found. That was the greatest truth the universe had provided him with as of late, and considering how few of those he had, Naruto felt it was a perfectly good advice to follow. He had sneaked out before, but he had never really made an effort of hiding himself once he was already out - his father would worry too much if he did. Even if he was a little suffocating and tended to baby him and do embarrassing things in public, Naruto knew his father loved him and was very sad since his mom had died, so now all the family they had left were each other.

When he had been four Kakashi had had to leave for a long term mission, and he had been bored to death for three months as he waited for the teen to come back – Minato didn't let him go out and play unless he had time to go with himself, which was almost never - and he had been angry at the jounin for leaving him to bore himself out for so long. He had been perfectly ready to give a long list of complains to the silver-haired nin, but he hadn't been able to. Because when Kakashi came back, he had to stay in the hospital for another month, and he didn't know how bad it was, but his Daddy had told him that it was very serious and that had been a scary word, then. What had happened to Gaara sounded serious.

He hadn't overheard everything, had barely caught some of the things Kashi had told his dad yesterday, but it sounded real bad, and it as his fault. When Kakashi had been nearly-dead, he had felt somewhat responsible because he had wished something bad happened to the jounin for leaving him alone. Here he knew Gaara had been punished for his fault alone. So, he couldn't be found. If he really, *really* concentrated, he found he could smell the ANBU and know where he could go to avoid them. Someday he'd learn the teleportation technique and wouldn't have to bother, but until then, he just had to be really quiet and make sure none of the masked bodyguards found him.

He just had to make sure that Gaara was okay and apologize for everything. He didn't like it and it was unfair, but his father had been right- it had been his fault. He had known that the Kazekage didn't want them to play together, for whatever stupid reasons he had, and yet he had gone and— he had wanted— He bit back the sniff, knowing it would give him away. He didn't have time and he couldn't be found, he was going slowly enough as it was to avoid detection. Once he was out of the area where the scent of the ANBU was strongest, he relaxed a bit and allowed himself to start walking around. He didn't have a particular aim, as he couldn't go to the Kazekage's house to see the other boy and he didn't know how he could leave a message… any message at all near it. The Kazekage would hid

Only… during all they talked in the hot afternoon, Gaara had told him about the swings - the ones with the sandbox. Where he had found him crying three days ago(and he had only meant to make him smile! Why were adults so unfair?). He'd write it in the sand, then. Even if the wind moved it and couldn't be read, Gaara's mom would know, because she was the sand. She'd tell Gaara how sorry… how sorry…

Slit blue eyes, the pupils wide to catch as much light as possible, fixed themselves on the small object blocking the seat of the swing.

'…Gaara?'

The redhead didn't move. Only the whites of his eyes glinted as his pupils moved to the left and caught a glimpse of a little figure standing not far away from him. Naruto? He didn't move. But the sand did.

It crawled on the floor, all wet and sluggish, and reached the kids ankles, circling around it and pawing at him with the heaviness like a dog that was happy about seeing him but couldn't decide if to go happy about it or bite the master for leaving him for so long. One eye glanced at him curiously while the other stayed with Gaara and observed the blond from the distance. How did he get here? He was forbidden to get close to him…

…father was not there. He didn't move.

There was an odd sound from the child at the feeling of the unnaturally cold sand crawling up his bare legs, something between surprise and disgust, even as the largest part of his mind was concentrated on something else.

'Gaara.' he whispered, tugging once, then harder when the sand didn't release him. Agilely, he avoided the patches of wet sand and got to the swings, his hand clutched to his own shirt. He extended his hand, but drew back at the last moment, bringing it back to the shirt.

'I'm s-sorry.' He hiccupped, his eyes filling with tears that quickly started to fall down the marked cheeks. Gaara looked hurt. Gaara looked like if he was in a lot of pain and looking at him like if… 'I didn't mean for you to get hurt. I'm sorry. Please don't hate me.'

The redhead watched him, unmoving. The wetness of his skin made him feel heavy and every move made him feel uncomfortable also. But this didn't mean he couldn't speak. 'I'm not hating you.' He spoke calmly in a muffled, quiet voice. The way blond behaved felt exaggerated and a little too much at the most. He never meant to make anyone cry. 'It's not your fault so don't apologize.'

To tell the truth he didn't know whose fault it was, but he didn't find guilty in his blond friend. Naruto didn't do anything wrong. If anything, it was him for not getting rid of the communicator once it was given to him. He frowned a little. His mother was more and more upset, probably not feeling good it couldn't chase after the blond like usual. He felt the beginnings of headache.

'It's not your fault.' He repeated and moved on a swing a little. It moved with a loud screech, ringing in his ears awfully.

Naruto finally released his shirt, only to start wiping fruitlessly at his shirt, trying to be as quiet as possible in the silent night.

'But your dad hurt you…!'

He didn't really see Gaara being bruised anywhere… what little of him he could see under his mother, but still, his eyes looked so pained… Still wiping at his eyes he advanced the last four steps that kept him away from the older boy and wrapped his arms around him. Gaara was covered in his mother, and his mother was wet and cold. He nuzzled his face against one of the few bits that felt like warmish skin. 'I just wanted to play with you, not for you to get punished!'

The sand moved off him immediately, curling around the blond and feeling at ease that it could get so close and soak some wetness into dry skin and clothes. He felt it getting lighter and a little of calmness got to him again, making his headache feel fainter. It felt good.

Without the prime thought he let go of the swing and curled up to Naruto, feeling that the closer he got the better his mother felt – and also, Naruto was a nice source of warmth and living flesh he rarely had occasion to feel in his life.

'It's okay.' He murmured quietly into the shirt that smelt salty and new 'Father has right to do that.'

Because father did. Father knew better if he deserved something or not. He was a father and a ruler of whole village. He was very clever and knew the right thing. And besides it was nice he took a notice of him from time to time… some people just didn't acknowledge he existed at all. Only when he killed them. But that was a very short attention. Dead people didn't care for him at all.

'It's okay.'

'It isn't.' Naruto sniffed out, his voice slightly hoarse from trying to keep himself from making louder noises. When the redhead let go of the swing and leaned to him, the blond staggered for a moment and imbalance, then fell down with a huff, trying to adjust the wriggling mass covering the older boy. He felt cold and heavy and a little suffocated… and his skin crawled unpleasantly when the coarse, wet sand slid against it, but now at least he had the redhead almost on his lap, with Gaara pressing back to him, so he did what his Daddy did when he wanted to comfort him. He put both arms around the other and curled around him.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'I hate coming to Suna.' he commented, wincing a little at the sensation of the alcohol. The thing was giving him a brainfreeze. The aftertaste was soft and almost creamy. He would have to get one of these bottles for Jiraiya-sensei. 'Once you do get here, it seems like so much trouble to go all the way back.' He took smaller sips. He'd learnt the bad way that if you took longer gulps the alcohol had a tendency to smash into you head first. That's why he was staring in open wonder at the way the older man gulped his own.

'Then why did you come?' The saffron haired man sipped on his third glass with much slower pace, starring in front of himself. He felt perfectly sober, though he knew that his body didn't think so. He saw even in the glass faint reflection that his eyes were glinting a little too much and his brown but usually stylish cheeks were a few tones darker – or even maybe redder. It wouldn't be long until it would hit him in the full – the 'Jewel…' was a very strong alcohol after all and he hadn't had a proper drink since… since…

Probably his wedding. Sounded almost like never. He looked insides the glass with glazed up gaze and wolfed it down again, feeling the buzz starting to swirl around his head. He needed to forget…

He poured himself another cup.

It looked dangerously nice and shiny. And it seemed it started to work on himself too. He felt his control slipping away, sealing off his mouth.

'Don't come to Suna if you don't like it in here. Nobody wants you to see here.' He muttered, feeling he didn't want to say that but it felt easy to let go once his tongue was on the loose 'Nobody expected you to come for past six years… and nobody wanted you here. Don't come to Suna if you hate it in here. It will hate you back. It does.'

He took another sip, feeling how his teeth clacked against each other for a moment, freezing in the illusion of cold which really wasn't there, but it was all it was about after all. He swallowed the gulp then looked at the blond. He seemed to be observant of him. He let go of his casual pose and got closer, taking another sip from the glass, balancing it between his fingers lightly so the smooth green surface twirled lazily in the faint light of oil lamp they got on once the sun went down. He rested lazily on one arm, bumping it slightly on the side of Hokage, but feeling that his sense of concentration left him also he didn't bother with trying to stand still.

'But if you're here…' he whispered faintly, looking at the blond with the gaze that could be described as something between 'stare', 'observe', 'checking out', and 'challenge', but all together – 'not serious' as it was glazed over like if it was full of glass '…then don't go back.'

He slowly let go of his cup, letting it stand on the table and poked the nose of the other mane almost the same style he did it with Naruto, but now it was made almost without a pressure as his idea of 'strength' was leaving his body also.

'Don't come back at all. Stay here. Learn to love this land.'

He sighed and widened his eyes for a moment, making it look like if he regained more of common sense in his speech, but it came just as fast as the breeze that moved the fire on the candle and made the light in the place waver, making the shadows dance. 'It will love you back. Like Kushina did.' He blinked, but didn't move an inch. 'Like your people did. ' But then the wind blew again, making the light dance again. 'Like…' He hesitated for a moment. Then he opened his mouth again and- …the wind blew off the lamp. He laughed. Laughed long and hard.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The redhead sighed happily, curling with Naruto even tighter as the sand slowly engulfed them and covered completely, forming a nice egg-shape of absolute defense around them. Gaara felt safe. And complete – at last. The mad voice is his head for the first time in his life got silenced, resonating only with only something quiet and purr like, and totally not talking to him. He opened his eyes a little, seeing perfectly in the dark. It finally felt warm. 'I wish… I wish we could stay like that forever.' He murmured and closed his eyes again, gripping on the blond tightly 'Don't come back to your village, please.'

Naruto clutched back at the redhead, his eyes staring worriedly at the living blackness that suddenly hid the stars, part of him worried of the fact it might try to collapse on them. Maybe on purpose, too. '…your dad wouldn't like it.'

He said quietly, one hand reaching up to touch something- felt the surprising softness of a round cheek and patted it lightly, as if to make sure the texture was correct. 'And… I have to go back. I can't leave my daddy alone. And I have to be Hokage when I grow up.'

Gaara opened his eyes, surprised at the light contact, instinctively leaning to it as he hardly got touched by anyone at all without mother snapping at them. It felt very… nice. He blinked again. No, Naruto was right. Father wouldn't be happy about it. With a sad sigh, he slowly let the sand crawl back and let the go to the openness of the world. The temperature dropped and it touched them cruelly as the bits of warmth held in sand cocoon just withered away. He looked at the small piece of moon floating in the sky and repeated the words Naruto just said. Be Hokage, be with father…

Naruto shuddered as the cold wind of the desert hit against his shirt, the fabric clinging to his skin with the accumulated moisture and the sand grains clinging to it. And instinctively pulled Gaara a little closer.

'That's a lot.' He said quietly and looked at Naruto with a sad face 'Will you ever come back to me if you have to do so many things?' he asked, feeling small and insecure. It always came to doing bigger things and nobody had time for him after all. Even Naruto. But he didn't want to let go just right now!... He caught the hand of the other, feeling light as the wetness of the sand has vanished, half-sucked by the blond's shirt and laying on the floor right now. 'Can I come with you then?...'

The other boy pulled back from the hold, staring at the redhead with wide blue eyes, his expression unsure. He had come to tell Gaara they couldn't see each other anymore. That he didn't want to be responsible for him getting hurt again, that his father didn't want them to play… that it was useless.

But as the pale boy stared at him pleadingly Naruto's expression hardened, withdrawing his hand to put both arms around the redhead in a strong hug. Gaara couldn't come, because he was Kazekage's son. So…

'We are friends.' he said, teeth clenched as if he were issuing a challenge. 'And- and you are going to be my friend. My daddy is friend with yours and that's all right, so I'll… I'll make this all right too! I promise!'

He was the son of the fourth Hokage of Konoha and he would keep his word. He'd find a way. It just would need some thinking.

'…I'll find a way. I promise.'

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato shrugged and smiled into his drink, not really knowing what to answer, and so, not answering at all. Anything he said could and would be used against him, no matter how drunk Daichi seemed to be getting. Why had he come to Suna after six years? It wasn't because the council had been pressuring him and it wasn't because Suna was closest or the matters more urgent or anything of the like. Water country was closer. Hidden rock needed him to go and draw the stupid contracts back from scratch a lot more than Suna's 'what if's' on the borders.

His relationship with Daichi had been… Not severed, exactly, but not by much… and whatever had been left of it had been salvaged by the older man, because he had been the one that kept writing and ordering him to come to Suna and Minato had… Well, he had waited. After a while he had answered, but only after a while. Because he had been surprised that, irregular as the letters might be, the Kazekage still talked to him after what he had done. And now everything was just wrong and things had been horribly misunderstood and he didn't dare set them right because if he did, Daichi would use them against him.

He had sent that letter because he had been angry at the older man for turning his son into a weapon and murdering his wife in the process. Because Daichi had loved Karura and had given her up despite it- Because he had disappointed him. Because he had always admired Daichi and he had done something so horrible and failed him and he had wanted to hurt him in return. Kushina had been livid.

'You have to go there!' she had said, gripping the letter in her hand, making him wonder if she planned to rip it. 'You can't just leave him alone right now, do you have any idea how he must be feeling?'

No, he hadn't had an idea, but he said he did. He probably almost believed it, too.

'Do you know what this will do to him?'

That he had. But he didn't remember caring. Not because he didn't care for his friend, but because he did care- Minato was only ever cruel to those that mattered to him. The discussing had ended in an argument and bodily harm to his person from his very own jounin.

'He's not just yours anymore, Minato, and you can't judge him for doing what his village demands of him!'

And maybe if she hadn't said that he wouldn't have sent it- because Kushina was always saying and doing things that drove him mad- made him think too much, made him feel too much- always cornering him and making him feel…. It was always her. Her and Daichi analyzing him and saying things that shouldn't have been said at all. 'I'm surprised you are back in one piece.' she had told him the night right before the Kazekage's wedding while he absently traced seals on her bare stomach. She wasn't ticklish there, only behind her knees, so he could enjoy the action leisurely.

'Dai has never been the kind to party that hard.' he had chuckled, carefully avoiding telling her that for the first time since he knew him he had seen Daichi drunk. He wasn't sure why, as it would be absolutely delightful for the younger redhead to know, especially as she had been forced to stay and make acquaintances with the future wife, all things considered. It just… seemed safer not to talk about it with her. 'Not what I meant.'

'What did you meant then, you sick, little woman?' he had asked playfully, fully expecting her to punch him and say something that would make him laugh.

'…just saying that if he could get away with it Dai would rip out your heart and eat it so he wouldn't have to share.' she had said casually, still trailing her nails lightly over his scalp, not stopping even when she felt him tense 'Too bad I won.'

He had just laid there in silence for a horrible second in which he sincerely felt like if he would go into a fully fledged panic attack- but the sensation left as quickly as it had come.

'Won what?' he asked, sincerely not having an idea what she was talking about.

'…you are cruel, you know.' she had asked in a casual tone 'But I guess that's our fault…'

'Sorry, I think I blinked and missed it when we changed conversation.' He had laughed then. Even though it hadn't really seem funny. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'I mean that the worst thing that could have happened to us was meeting you. Or maybe the other way around, not that it makes a difference now.'

'Your teamwork was a disaster until I was assigned leader.' Their previous captain had nearly died and decided to quit as a shinobi because of them.

'Of course it was. Nothing is more focusing that a little competition.'

And then he could have asked, competition on what? There were only two possible answers, and so he had decided that not knowing was better. He had kissed her stomach.

'I think you've been reading too much of sensei's work, Kushina.' He had said, finally turning around to stare at her. 'Daichi isn't jealous of you or anything like that.'

She hadn't been looking at him, but lying in her bed, with a lock of bloody red on her wingers and the end of it on her mouth, playing with the glossy strands. Thoughtful Kushina, what a dangerous thing that was…

'He can't be jealous of me, stupid. I'm a woman.' And then he had honestly laughed, because she sounded as I her answer were the most coherent, obvious answer in the world.

'Isn't that what you were implying?'

'Implying?' she sucked on the lock of hair for another moment. 'I just meant that men think different from women, that's all. Of course he won't be jealous of me, he could never do the same things that you do with me. It's not something intrusive.'

He hadn't understood. He was almost absolutely sure he honestly hadn't understood. He could have told himself that until the day he died if Kushina hadn't continued talking then.

'_Tell me, how would you have felt if Karura had been a man?' _

And now here he was back in Suna, and Kushina was gone and all he had left of that period of his life was Daichi. Stupid Daichi who always cornered him and didn't let go even when he leashed- and wasn't that why he had come back? Wasn't that why he had left him alone in his moment of grief and severed all ties- Kushina wasn't there anymore and the competition was gone and maybe (maybe) he had wanted to hurt Daichi simply because the idiot put himself in positions to be hurt and that meant so much. _(If he could get away with it, would rip out your heart and eat it so he wouldn't have to share.) _

And there was more, wasn't it? Things like yesterday, that he had just forgotten because it was convenient—

That… was a dangerous thought. Very. It seemed like a good idea to toss it in a box, and then put that box inside of another box, hammer that box shut, then shove it in a crate filled with concrete, slap some seals on top of it and burry it somewhere no one would ever find it. Yeah, sounded like a brilliant plan. Genius, even.

(Pathetic little human)

The fox mocked in his head.

He wasn't smiling as he removed the glass from the redhead's hands.

'I think you are drunk, Dai.'

'Am I drunk?...' The saffron haired man stopped laughing, though he still clutched over his stomach when the glass was taken away from his hand. He stared off into the darkness, as the moon on the sky provided little to no light and stars – they were just stars. Gentle dust of shine that made everything visible on the desert – but not here, in town. He slowly turned his head to gaze at the shadowed figure of the man, the whites of his eyes flashing like if they were made of fluorescent stones.

'…or am I?' He rose up, dusting himself off and smiling. Drunk? Nonsense, he wasn't drinking that much and he was not having such a light hea- Ops. He turned too quick on his heels wanting to light the lamp again to show how perfectly sober he was, but instead of catching the lamp (well, the right lamp as the other one seemed to be valid as his hands just went through it) and landed on his back again, almost keeling over and getting his head hurt over the harsh surface of the table if it wasn't for the fact he caught on the blond's arm and missed it by a few millimeters. He stilled, watching the alcohol in the bottle and his own cup dance madly as he kicked the table in the process, feeling how the bump ringed roughly in his bone, unprepared for such action.

Then he smiled and started laughing again. 'I'm not drunk!' he slurred, laughing to the table and almost keeling over, then felling on the opposite side, still holding onto the arm and for a brief moment seeing the sky. Why was he so happy about? He almost didn't understand. What was he… what was he doing just before that, he…

Ah. He got back to the sitting position, catching more of the material that felt so strange around his fingers, clutching on it like if he would drown once he'd let go. He blinked, clearing out the glazed eyes, but only in a bit. Though even if he saw everything through a haze, still – the closer he got to the object the better he saw it. Finally, he saw Minato in just the right length. If it went on he'd think of getting glasses.

'I'm not drunk.' He repeated with a light pressure in his words, smiling at the face that seemed impossibly big for its usual standards. 'If I was drunk I… I would…'

He frowned, thinking hard, searching for right words, not getting it out of his mind as he felt everything was covered in nice cotton and buzzed warmly, making him loosened up and happy for no reason. He closed his eyes, smiling again and propping his chin on the other's shoulder and giving off something he'd never suspect of being able to give – a giggle. And not just any giggle. A teenagerish, youngsterish kid's giggle. And yet, it seemed perfectly appropriate just in this moment.

Of course it was! He was a kazekaze… kazekadu… kaze… kaze…. Kamikaze! He knew very well what was appropriate when he was on the friendly meeting with friend! And what was inappropriate on friendly meeting with friend?

'…I would kiss you right now.' Then he giggled more, striving for a hearty laugh and almost, almost managing. 'Stupid, isn't it? If I were drunk, I would just go and kiss you, huhuhu, very funny! If I were drunk…' He repeated those words like if he was stupid or maybe like if Minato was stupid, but he wasn't sure if the other understood what he said so, just to have the ultimate knowledge that the blond got the message through. He didn't know why, but it seemed important to him right now to send it to Minato loud and clear.

'If I were drunk…' he spoke again, looking at the completely serious face and feeling that his own happiness suddenly vanished away and in such tempo it seemed it was made from alcohol or something like that. Funny he thought about the alcohol when they were drinking just the alcohol he had in his cabinet and he never drank the alcohol and it seemed some of it went down him and he thought that he wasn't drunk because he wasn't drunk but if he were drunk- If he were drunk-

'If I were drunk…' he said, now completely shaken off the laughter, looking at Minato through lidded eyes, slowly blinking them. What wouldn't he do? His stomach felt so strange, he shouldn't have drank the alcohol which lied in his cabinet because alcohol which was laying there was an alcohol that was strong alcohol of brand of mark of alcohol- He closed his eyes and leaned forward. Then his grip lightened and he slid down Minato's front down the material, facing the earth with only half opened eyes.

'I'm drunk.' He muttered quietly 'Please, take me home.'

Minato caught the shorter man more by reflex than anything else and helped him straighten himself, staring down at the bared nape with a frown. Purple marks extended from somewhere on his shoulder to it, broken capillaries and abused skin- Why hadn't Daichi at least gotten some basic first aid, just bother some useless chuunin to make himself useful and pour some chakra to accelerate the healing… Why did Daichi have to do these things to him? They were from different villages, he was the leader of an Opposite Village, as the other man liked to remind him of so often, and yet he had to go and get drunk and make himself vulnerable.

He suddenly remembered the casual way the redhead had removed his robes the previous day, the way that hellish sun had gleamed over the scars and planes of muscle. Now it was probably black and blue from yesterday- and he remember it had already beginning to bruise, remembered Daichi covered in sweat and blood and bruises- and felt a sudden spike of lust, as strong as it was unwelcome. Fucking idiot. Bastard, bastard, wasn't this why he had stayed away from Suna?

'I can't do that.'

As far as he saw it, he had three options. He could drag Daichi back home, where doubtlessly his kids and in-law would see it, meaning that the older man would spend weeks torturing the whole of them for having seen him at a moment of weakness. He could take him to his own room, where baby and adopted baby going through puberty would doubtlessly be freaked out for life, not to mention the mood Daichi would be in the morning and how badly mistreated he'd get. Or he could drag Daichi somewhere more private and fuck him silly.

Yeah, that's the idea he liked the most, especially because in the state Daichi was in he was pretty sure he could get him to beg (and maybe he could even get that when he was sober, and really, what kind of person was he for wanting these things?). What now?

_(__How would you have felt if Karura had been a man?) _

'You really piss me off sometimes.' He said somewhat angrily. Daichi had wanted to get drunk, because if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been drowned that thing as if it were water when he had never taken anything stronger than a beer.

He dragged the saffron-haired nin to one of the palms and arranged him so he was lying with his head on his lap, peeling off the fingerless gloves he was wearing off with his teeth and pressing them lightly against the man's eyes.

'Just sleep it off.' he ordered, concentrating a bit of chakra so he could speed up the burning of the alcohol 'I'll wake you up in two hours.' It would be like, two in the morning, then, right?

Not that he cared. He doubted he'd be able to sleep tonight either. _'Learn to love this land.'_ If he didn't, he wouldn't have come back.

'Minato…' The wind blew, making the sand rustle, not being strong enough to chill the skin. He breathed on it, feeling how his head felt warm, dizzy and well cushioned as it laid on a nice piece of warm, covered body. Slowly, like if he was afraid to move too quickly, he rose his hand and pulled one glove off his eyes, glancing at the sky. It was covered in twinkling stars and moving leaves of coconut palm. He blinked and looked up to gaze at the blond man. He seemed to be at a very serious mood for no apparent reason. And all in all, it felt somehow dangerous.

Not that he complained about anything, no. He felt loosened up and comfortable in the warmth behind his head and the scent of something absolutely not from Suna that oozed from all of the Konohan's three. And It felt nice. He blinked again, his gaze glazing over as he gulped the air, looking back at the sky, barely seeing the man by the corner of his visible eye.

He didn't protest when he was being pushed off the hard chair and dragged to the place and told something ridiculous about sleeping with some kind of material on his face. Why should he? He thought Minato was taking him home. Only after few minutes he recognized that not moving didn't mean getting closer to the desired destination and decided to act.

Even if the last thing he wanted was playing the strict sober parent and ruler of a village. Even if the view was peaceful and nice and made him calm down from all stress he felt before. Even if that was one of the very rare opportunities to… He sighed and closed his eyes, turning his head slightly toward the blond so he could see him better. He seemed to be angry at him but he didn't care. Now he didn't care anymore.

'…why?'

#+#+#+#+#+#

The redhead nodded and hugged Naruto tightly, like if the physical strength would help on the promise to come true. Though, as he looked in front of himself, his eyes got a little more sad – bit by bit.

'Promise?' he asked quietly, though he didn't really expect the answer. It seemed that everyone in his life were bounded to leave him. He didn't want that to happen again. Not to someone like Naruto. 'Promise me that we will meet again…'

Because now they couldn't stay together. He knew that. He felt that in his skin and he knew that his mother knew it too. The sand rose up the land again and cling to the blond, tugging on his ankles like if it wanted to make him stay. And to tell the truth, it was actually its purest intention.

'Because I will wait for you.'

'I promise.' Naruto repeated, hugging back the boy just as fiercely. And he'd never go back on his word, because if he did, he'd never be worthy of being a Hokage. It was late now, probably almost midnight, and he should go back. He didn't know when his dad would return, and if he didn't find him there…. 'And we'll see each other again, and we'll be friends.' He said, giving the redhead a last squeeze. 'But I have to go now. If Kashi wakes up and doesn't find me there or daddy gets back, you will get scolded again...'

That made him slowly let go, his expression bitter. It wasn't fair.

The redhead slowly let go of the blond, even if the sand was a little more reluctant to go. But then he just stepped with his feet on it and it gradually fell down, becoming the pieces of lifeless, damp grains. Somehow he had a feeling it wasn't a normal goodbye and that maybe it was a very abnormal goodbye – for more than a few days or weeks. Somehow he felt that no matter what – he didn't want to let go.

'Want me… want me to go with you?' he asked, fidgeting a little 'There's not safe around here… father said there's a monster in the village and not to go around without safety around…'

Something in his head stirred just in the wrong way but he didn't dare to listen to it. He looked at Naruto sheepishly, trying to not act pleadingly, but he did. That wasn't fair.

'I don't want to say goodbye…'

Naruto nodded, but then frowned and shook his head.

'Kashi will know you are there.' It was one thing to ignore a chakra source you recognized immediately, as it didn`t stir any sense of danger, but an alien chakra… He blinked eyes that suddenly felt stingy and sucked on breathe for a moment, then gave the younger boy as good a smile as he was capable of at the moment. 'He'll tell. I don't want you to get hurt again because of me...'

He walked away, because looking at the younger boy made him want to cry and picked up the forgotten plush toy, dusting the grains of sand clinging to its fur as good a she could and offered him shyly to the older boy. 'Take care of teddy… and we'll play together again.'

Gaara looked at teddy, then at Naruto, then slowly his facial began to crumble, showing that he was on the verge of crying. He grabbed his teddy by its paw then let go of it.

'Teddy doesn't want you to let go of him…' he whispered, his voice wavering in hitching gulps that foretold the future sobbing. 'He… he didn't see much of you and he said he wants to show you much stuff and that he liked you very, very much beyond all and that he will miss you and, and…'

The redhead stopped, his tears finally spilling from his eyes to his cheeks as he tried desperately not to sob and act like a steady human.

'…come back soon, please? Or he sa-said he will cry.'

'Don't cry…' the blond had been doing his best to hold himself, but he was just a little kid. Like any normal little kid, he started crying too, also letting go of the toy and taking a few shaky steps. His arms wrapped around Gaara's neck as he clutched at him, pressing his face against the other's shoulders. 'Please, please don't cry.'

'Naruto, that's enough.' The lights on the sky blinked as the shadow from walls slowly emerged and came to have quite human shape. The redhead looked at him with hostility, but then he let go of his defense as it came out that he knew the man. The grey haired man looked at the kid warily, remembering how scary and practically nightmarish he's got back at the day, but now he looked just like a crushed kid who, if anything, wanted Naruto to stay. And really, they has been saying goodbyes to each other for quite some time – he let them, but he couldn't bear it for much longer as his burns were giving him hell.

He should've been laying in bed actually, but the disappearance of Naruto on the first day taught him his lesson and even if he felt like vomiting when he got up he followed the blond like a good obedient ninja he was. This was his duty and no ninja rejected the duty even after light burns. And besides, it seemed that the longer Naruto was with the redhead the more reluctant the redhead was when it came to letting him go and considering he was kind of dangerous, it wasn't a very happy information.

'It's very late. Come on, we have to go back and dry your clothes before your father comes back and notices.' He urged them and slowly turned back, giving them time for final goodbyes of goodbyes. The redhead looked at Naruto with teary eyes, not really feeling like letting go at all, but since he really, really had to, then he had to. He hiccupped, once, twice, hugged Naruto very tightly once again and then, let go of him, taking the plushie with himself and slowly emerging into the sand to not give into the desire to catch him and drag him away with everything as he usually did when he wanted it. Even if mother wanted that too. That was no-no and he knew he couldn't.

'Bye.' He muttered quietly through his saddened face and vanished in the shadows. Naruto promised. And if he promised, there was no reason to not believe him. He will. Kakashi starred off after the red haired child and, seeing he was not there anymore, he turned his gaze back to Naruto. Then, seeing he wasn't in the best shape ever, he sighed and sacrificed the rest of his body's peace for his mind's peace.

'Come on, Naruto.' He said, crouching down and smiling at him 'Hop on. I'll give you a piggyback ride. We will be in our room quicker.'

#+#+#+#+#+#

'The body accepts chakra more easily through the eyes,' the younger man replied calmly, 'One of my students told me so, once.'

Not that he didn't know what Daichi was asking, but when he got like this Minato was just difficult. He adjusted the questions to what he felt the most comfortable to answer, and that usually was enough to discourage most. Unless you were subtle like a brick to the head, like Kushina had been. And for some strange reason Daichi was being unusually forward when he never had been and that made him feel cornered and manipulated, two of the things he hated the most in his life.

The other man watched the blond intensively, expecting some more, any other explanation. But it seemed that was it and that Minato was not going to go with the subject anywhere further. Maybe not yet, maybe not at all.

'Understood.' He muttered like if he was a rookie ninja on training and not a kage himself and laid back into the dizziness and natural warmth of body, letting the palm cover his eyes. 'Understood… completely.'

No, not at all, not in one bit. Beside the fact that blond seemed to ignore him or not understand what he was asking about, he didn't get the meaning of any secret message if there was any. But maybe It all was because he felt so dizzy and everything was a little blurred up… He didn't let go of the fingers he pushed from his one eye – instead, he smiled lightly, feeling hopeless satisfaction getting it his way one or another. Then he covered the palm with his own hand and added some of his own chakra. Not much as he felt particularly lazy and not in the mood of helping the situation at all. But still – the whizzing around his face increased and the temperature in his fingers rose. Minato's hands was also a little warmed up. Wonderful thing, that chakra.

He let go of a small chuckle. Oh, the irony of the situation… He remembered how long, long time ago he just sat near the window and watched, observed people and learned new facts about behavior, so needed for being a receptive ninja. And he never failed in noticing simplest details. For example – the lazy boy of lower rank from Konoha and some outsider from the academy that visited him once in awhile. They always spat at each other, bickered and shouted things that made such nobilities like Hyuuga's blush and other laugh. He never understood how come that she always was back and never poisoned the boy with the food she brought even if she seemed to be in big need of doing that. Then, on the observation, he noticed.

After a particularly stormy conversation where 'douches' and 'wenches' flied very high, the pair just got silent and walked to the exit with disgust on their faces. And there was only one small difference that made them look good even after that. It was their sides. The bitter distance of few centimeters didn't exist there, they almost bumped with every step, making the arms, upper hands and fingers accidentally touch and brush against each other. Then he learned about the magnetism of positive emotions. He chuckled again. What an useless memory.

He lolled his head a bit, smiling to the sky he didn't see, feeling both happy and hopeless for no apparent reason. But he didn't need that to imagine. He saw them every day. His own piece of the universe above the endless sands.

'So, you've dreamed…' he murmured with a chuckle still bubbling at the back of his throat, there, somewhere 'That love is great as stars…' Ah, there they were. The white spots of someone's carelessness, bright fires in the dark almost black sky 'So you wake to find this is all you are…'

He chuckled again, noticing behind closed eyes and both of hands on his head how the bigger one winked at him. Crazy desert sky…

'Well, I just…' he trailed again with a some forgotten song he barely remembered '…want to be what you…' The tune died on his lips for a moment as he frowned. What was there again? Not that he couldn't remember, because he could, but… but he didn't really NEED- he didn't really WANT- No, he couldn't remember the words at all. So he just hummed the rest of the tune without words. Somehow he didn't feel sleepy at all.

Minato relaxed his hand as soon as the other touched it, not rejecting the touch or encouraging it, just letting it lay passively where it was, the tiny amount of chakra joining his own making him wince as if it were something painful. If he had been a little less self-indulgent, or a bit more willful, he would have gotten up right there and then, because Dai was messing up the rules and throwing him off the board and that was unacceptable at any levels of relationship they might ever have shared.

He could have gotten up and walked away (and there would be satisfaction in wiping that smile on his face, doubtlessly, dark and bitter, but satisfaction, nonetheless), but he just stayed there. Because he hadn't heard Daichi sing since he had been sixteen, since he had practically been obliged as someone had to go up on the stage and do something backgroundish and distracting enough so Kushina and him could get to the leak of information and silence it without anyone noticing. And from all things in the world, Daichi had started to sing, and not only that he'd been good at it- too bad promises of never speaking of it had been exchanged (forced really, as an embarrassed Daichi was not a happy Daichi… and when the pissed Sunanin knew where you slept it was really to just smile and nod and assure the secret would be buried with you at the grave, especially when you happened to share a tent with said embarrassed Sunanin).

And sure, it wasn't as nice as then, as the position didn't really help with the tone and the words were slightly slurred, but he wanted to stay there and listen. And he could afford to do that. Because….

…he could considered be innocent until his guiltiness could be proven. And until then he would be safe.

'I will need the original designs.' He said, his voice softer than the other's. 'I can do most of it on my own, but if we want it to be right, I need to know what did you use.'

The other man stopped humming the same accord nonstop and turned his head slightly toward Minato like if he could see him better that way. The smile still sat on his lips, unerased.

'Satin and flour, that's why it's so white.' He said without a trace of mockery in his voice 'And then it got drowned in blue, blue sky and hanged on the dryer to drip-drop and make this beautiful luxury robe in which every shadow of wind hides his identity…' Then he lolled his head on the side a little more so he was almost touching the surface if covered skin with a cheek and stilled, loosening up and wiping his smile of his face ever so slowly.

Original design?... Has Minato lost his mind?...

'I don't remember it…' he drawled quietly, letting his head fall finally 'It was so long ago… Gaara was so little when he was born. Can you believe it? Little like a doll…'

He smiled a little, finally stopping the chakra flow in his hand. It was useless and the blond didn't really need it so why was he bothering. He didn't have any reason to act that way, right? Right? And yet, the hand still remained. Not for long, a minute or two, then it was taken away, even if the fingers still twitched longingly after the warmth of chakra. Once being a Kazekage you never really felt the chakra flows unless you were injured. And that didn't happen very often either.

He missed feeling of a body filled with chakra against him. He really, really missed it. But Karura was dead and nobody else really counted so it was another useless dream. Dreams were always useless. Without a warning he rose from his position, shrugging off the arms. He regained a little of his reason but the alcohol still colorized his skin and made him a little dizzy.

'What the heck are you doing?...' he asked with a hushed tone like if anyone could've spotted them 'I told you to take me home!...'

Not that he wanted to go there, no. But all his drunkenness made him feel extremely vigilant about what he did and said. He already felt like if he did something forbidden, though his mind was still failing him in reminding him what it was. It would be too dangerous to stay around that man in such state now… 'Please, take me home.' He said, trying to sound harsh and like an authority he was, but instead coming out as someone who felt a little insecure by what he did on his own – more of a pleading than ordering.' This just feels too… too…' he searched for a word even if only one thing came to his mind and described it greatly.

'…lazy.' He ended, hopelessness clearly written on his face. He failed at everything. He couldn't take charge of Minato for being lazy with him, right? Then, after a few seconds of stretching silence he slowly laid again on the blond's lap, frowning a little 'I am drunk.' He added though nobody asked him anything. If he didn't someone would've, might've get a wrong idea or something… And he didn't want that.

Minato gritted his teeth, trying not to think about why Gaara had to be so small, trying not to think about what had happened to that sweet little girl Daichi had taken for a wife. How could he have sent that letter? Daichi had been right there, watching and he had… How could he have let his friend thing he had given up on him for six years …

'You are drunk because you wanted to, don't blame it on me,' he nearly hissed, unconsciously pulling away, feeling angry and scared without any sort of escape. 'You drank because you wanted to get drunk and- and- trap me so you won't have to share…'

God, he hadn't said that out loud. Minato had never had a problem hiding how he felt. It was easier to smile, as it made you inconspicuous, and it was easier to pretend to be oblivious as it removed all responsibilities from the actions from yourself. Life of a shinobi was hard enough without adding attachments and emotional confusion to it. And yet he had fallen in love with the most maddening woman Water country had to offer, had let her play with him, had let her mess with his head and make him hers. Pushed and cornered him until she broke defenses and then built them back and now she was gone- And he was left with a mess that he had never hope to put back together on his own because he was just too lost.

He pushed the older man away, the contact suddenly being more than he could handle. If Daichi had been in any less of a state, he probably would have punched him.

'Stop making excuses! You have them somewhere because you would have never tried anything you weren't sure of, so you have it written somewhere. So find where you put them and bring them, and him, and come to Konoha… ' Couldn't the stubborn bastard see that it was a real, solid chance, couldn't he just fight for it instead of running and hiding and never really trying? 'And if you come-'

If he came and SHOWED him-

'If you come I will…'

No. As soon as he became aware of how furious he was, of how close he was about to start a fight with the older man, Minato's whole body relaxed, almost slumped. After a moment, he raised his knees slightly and crossed his arms in front of his chest, his eyes drawn to the abandoned glass at one of the tables. '…just make sure you get the ones you used.'

The wind blew around him. He lied on the sand. He felt it on his mouth, but he didn't dare to move to even feel how it tasted. _You drank because you wanted to get drunk and trap me so you won't have to share… _Not that it mattered. At all. The buzzing in his head had stopped and so did the dizziness and everything else. He was sober like if he didn't drink an ounce of beer. It couldn't be what he thought it was, right?... It couldn't be… it wasn't possible. And yet…

And yet…

He stared at the sand in front of his face and breathed in slow, deep gasps, but only through his nose as doing that through mouth would be too loud, too vulgar. He stared at the sand and his eyes were shining in the shadows, perfectly clear, perfectly cleaned out. He was sober. He was so shocked his body was kicked into the instant flush of soberness. And now he could only… remember everything. How he was supposed to live that down? That was so humiliating he couldn't even find words for it. Was there a diplomatic way of getting out of this? Was there at all?

Of course there was, there should be, it wasn't nothing uncommon, but the emptiness in his head proved him otherwise. That was a blow he didn't expect. He had to gather himself. Quickly. He moved his limbs and somehow he scrambled off to the full posture, standing straight and stiff, looking at Minato with widened eyes. He moved his pale mouth once or twice, wanting to say something, but still finding nothing in his head, and therefore - not making any witty remark. It seemed that his voice chords has been blocked either way.

Finally he just decided that regaining his breathing was the best activity to do and he turned his back on the blond, moving to the table on wooden legs. There he closed the lid of the half empty bottle and gathered two cups – one empty, one full and looked at them. Then he drank from the full cup, first a sip, then quicker, until he was downing it as a glass of water. It rang with ice in his teeth and inside his brain but he just swallowed until he swallowed it whole. Then he regained some breath and numbness.

'Very well.' he spoke, his voice trembling and panting like if he was just in the winter atmosphere of Iron Land 'I will search for the forbidden seals and send Gaara to your village in a few weeks. I will contact you in the matter of who will bring the seals. I don't know who it will be.' He breathed again. In the warm atmosphere of the desert his huff came out as a white cloud of smoke, almost like if he just lit the cigar. He had some, present from former Tsuchikage, hidden somewhere between clothes he didn't wear and objects he didn't use. It was worth just as much anyway. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

'Most likely it will be Baki.' He said and twirled the glass in his hand. It shone in the faint light like a crystal it was imitating so well 'You know him, he is my most trusted man in the ANBU squad. He knows how to handle the kid, he know that closed scrolls are supposed to stay closed. Yes, that will be a good choice.'

He stopped, gritting his teeth, feeling how helplessness crept back on him. Now was the worst part and he really didn't want to do it, but if he wanted to get out of there, he had to act on it. And he was a Kazekage – so he knew he could. Like always.

His hand shook a little too much. He gripped the glass harder to prevent it from trembling and the cup crunched dangerously. He loosened the grip.

'Thank you for a good evening, Hokage-sama.' He grabbed the bottle, its contents swooshing heavily around the space and turned around, smoothing his face to the clearest indifference. Then, step by step he closed the space between them before he crossed him and left sitting under the coconut palm. Only after a few steps he let go of his breath and loosened his tensed up muscles. The glass in his hands twinkled and fell on the ground muffled by sand, leaving a trail of shining pieces.

There it went. The heritage of Second's Kazekage's liquor's cabinet. Now he had only one luxury cup to drink from. Not that it mattered. He didn't have a company to drink with after all.


	7. Chapter Seven: I don't complain

Lighter on.

*click*

Lighter off.

*click*

Lighter on.

*click*

Lighter off.

*click*

Lighter on…

He breathed, not even blinking, his eyes used to constant light that fell on his face once he switched on and off the little square sized present from Third Hokage who was fond of pipes and always had time to smoke one. This gift was considered as a gentle warning about his duties of being polite and being always prepared for everything as he, never lighting a cigarette in his life, hadn't got even matches with himself for the third time Hokage asked for light.

After that Tsuchikage presented him a pack of cigars, it being more of a mockery of his young age on such a high stool and another symbolic warning that the village hidden in the Sand counted very little. He could be the Kazekage, but his lack of knowledge and possibilities were putting him in something of half of a rank between old and experienced kages. That day Daichi felt he had to do something for Suna and lift it up from the comafied life, being at the edge of war with everyone and having little to no funds for military. It was day when his downhill started, even if he had to wait for consequences many years later. Was it cursed or blessed date? He didn't know. But he knew he couldn't rewind the time. He flicked the lighter off.

He couldn't sleep. His body wanted it, needed after such an evening, asking him for a rest after rare state of drunkenness and quite sudden shock of soberness – but he couldn't allow it. For the first time from so long he feared to close his eyes to see something he had long forgotten to remember. And he knew that If he did, that if he only closed his eyelids for mere seconds it would be there, waiting for him like the most hideous scorpion, like the most sneaky snake of those dry lands, waiting to poison him and he'd embrace it and fall onto it and there would be no running, no escape. He'd fall and he'd break and in the morning he'd still be fallen and even if he would get up he would not rise from ashes. No, not this again…

_The blonde sandpapery hair that mingled between his fingers and shone like pieces of rare platinum gold that those lands never saw and never intended to saw beside the little ring on the finger of the one he chose. They shone and she looked at him, her eyes turquoise and greenish, her body pale but only that olivine kind of pale that was considered light among the desert people who always turned orange, red, brown, black. Her light pinkish lips that laughed at him as he held her and kissed her, the light cheery laughter and white sheet that engulfed her, him, them both, covering and uncovering, letting him hold and touch, kiss and explore, look and eat with both of his hands. It smelled of wild desert roses and sandalwood, the shampoo she used and the soap they used both and it was fresh and innocent, just as stolen kisses and hugs that was made between them. He loved. _He loved.

_But then the crescendo halted for one special moment and instead of choir he heard single pair of violin and a bow that rushed into a crazy dance of music he couldn't even hum but he would recognize everywhere, exactly everywhere. It changed and everything changed, the freshness started to waver and became sticky and lukewarm, the arms which held him were growing more desperate, more needy, the body's temperature grew, making him more and more warm until he couldn't breathe and she smiled, smiled at him, not like her but like a witch, like a medusa that caught him in her arms and never let go and he gave in and tore the white sheets and licked the ugly, knowing smile. She knew she had won and he lusted. _He lusted.

_But then the violin mixed up with something else, played irregularly, like if it broke, like if it wasn't violin at all and he couldn't see and couldn't breathe but for some odd reason he knew, he knew that something was changing again and he saw that her shoulders were tensed up and that her hair shone more and that her smile grew more gentle but more alluring and she finally held onto him just like he held onto her and just when he landed a calming kiss on her lips there was something odd and something scary in her eyes as she looked at him and they were blue, blue, pristine, sapphire blue!..._

_And he couldn't get up and he couldn't get out because it was too late, because he was already tangled and wanton and he could only give in more or give in more and he knew that he didn't want to run anyway because it was what he really wanted through all this heat and broken music and he let go of himself, and felt so good to finally be loved. Be loved. And he felt so happy, and he felt too happy and he felt it too much and he felt looked up and there was no her anymore, it was, there was- _He moaned _and_ woke up screaming.

A nightmare. He fell asleep.

He fell freaking asleep! He gasped for air and caught the lighter, flicking it on

*click*

-he threw it to the other side of the room, sweating, gasping for air, shaken… No, not this again! This has ended ages ago! Damned monster!-

It ended! Ended ages ago! He knew it ended. He knew! He could prove it!... Without a word he got up and ran out of the room, nearly tripping on his sandals and catching himself on the wooden walls, getting to the first room-

Kankuro slept. Good. He ran to another room. Temari slept. Better. He closed the door. And ran again. Gaara was in. Looked like haunted, the walls smelled of blood and rotten insides. Not good. But not bad. He closed the door and locked them on key. He knew the boy wouldn't open them without his permission. He ran down the stairs.

Ah, there he was. Laying on the table, with bottle of cheap gin and slurred something through his sleep, waking up as he clicked the lights on and rummaged through drawers.

'What's happened?...-' he murmured as he threw the package of white powder into the half empty glass and threw it under his nose '-age-sama?...'

'Drink it.'

'But…'

'Drink it!' he howled, pushing it onto him, almost spilling all on his blouse. The blond looked at him warily, then drank it obediently. After half of a minute his head banged on the surface of the table, unconscious, comafied. Damned brother-in-law. Always required more effort than everyone else. He took out the oiled lamp and lighted it on and ran up to his office.

There, there, there, the object of his insanity, the proof, the godsdamned reason of it all!...

He threw out all remnants of his perfectly clean closet, making the tightly rolled scrolls open and tear, segregated books fall everywhere and checked papers mix with unchecked ones, let them scrunch and get dirtied on the floor as he walked on them, opening drawer after drawer, taking key after key, opening one shelf with one key, taking out another, making seal, opening invisible locks, sealing them, unsealing another hidden shelves and hidings. All until he reached the biggest of them all, the glassed square hiding in where he had to cut his own hands to put them in until they froze, they burned and melted as he made seal after seal, one after another, seeing how his hands slowly tore of the skin and burned by ice and fire, slowly eating them higher and higher, engulfing his elbows, reaching his arms, getting to head-

Final seal. The fire died out. The ice vanished. But the wounds were real, but he didn't see them, wouldn't want to see them, ignored them as he took out what the cabinet was hiding and closed the cursed cave. The sound of it closing ran through the whole house – or maybe was it his head only – like a shot from the pistol, but it triggered him to action as he broke and opened the it, the thing, the object-

The sealing scroll.

It rolled on the floor over the other papers and books like a map, it was that big. And even if it was so old it remembered the ages of first ancestors of Suna, it was not crunched, not dirtied, besides the yellowish paper – almost looking like new. No wonders since it was used only four times in its all existence. First, to seal off the Shukaku, second to experiment on human and fail. Then experiment and succeed. He opened the light notebook that he took out with it. _When I woke up, I knew I could never go to sleep again…_ He closed it. No, not this, not yet… Fourth time. To succeed. And to last. The third usage of the scroll was his own doing. He remembered it like today. He remembered, he knew it – he had proof. The story of his life.

The light of lamp shone orangeish on first letters, the beginning words of ancient formula. It almost looked like beginning of witchcraft, a spell, it was so old, so mysterious…

'_Daichi! Daichi, I have good news for you! I'm pregnant!' _

'_What?' _

'_Why are you looking at me like that? Aren't you happy?...' _

The letters shone in the fire like if they were magical, fresh, just written. The ink glistened, twinkled, allured him and smiled at him like if it wanted to make him say it, murmur the words it showed and he caught himself on almost-almost murmuring the first part of incantation. _**'Oh, great gods of the desert that lived through time and space, listen to our prayer, we call you…'**_

'_Daichi… Daichi, how would you like to name our baby?' _

'_What? I don't know, maybe Sunako or Kazuhiko, I don't know…' _

'_What about Daiki?' _

'_Daiki? But that's a boy's name!' _

'_Of course it's a boy's name. It will be a boy, Chiyo saw it.' He looked at her as she smiled at him, pink, happy and timid, always like her and she looked so beautiful he had no heart to do anything else but grunt something unintelligible. And she felt instinctively, as she always felt it was no good, no good at all that it was a boy and that something bad has happened again. _

'_I wanted Daiki, because it means 'great noble' and is written like yours…' she said as she scurried away from his room hurriedly. He looked after her with frown on his face. A boy!... His third unwanted child will be a boy!... _

He moved the lamp and the light shone lower, looking at the fine line of drawings. First part of hand seals.

They weren't hard, not much – comparing to another part of the text after all. Average jounin would have problems with doing them right and doing them as quick as it was needed. He knew that and he remembered as he mastered them, day after day, seal after seal. He remembered as he mastered them – and he remembered as he showed them to her.

'_Isn't that a great idea, Karura? Isn't it?' _

_She sat before him, calm and timid as always – only her eyes looked at him with frown and with something close to curiosity, but curiosity she was obliged – not wanted to dwell on at all. That annoyed him a bit. _

'_So you say you want to put a great sand god Shukaku…' she said slowly, like if she couldn't proceed the news completely '…into our unborn baby son?' _

_He nodded, smiling at her and turned to look at the beautiful midday of the spring time of Suna lands. It was a beautiful, heated but serene day. _

'_Of course, think about it! He, as second and the youngest son has no rights to anything and if he won't be talented he will suffer for whole his life and neither you and I would want that-__' _

_- besides, this would get our beautiful village up in the ranks of our prestige, if it won't happen we will die under this sun with no help- _

'_And me? What will happen to me, Daichi?' _

_He turned to her, not understanding why did she stop him in the middle of such important explaining. She looked at him with eyes full of fear, almost like a doe that was standing dead struck before running truck. _

'_Don't be selfish, Karura. It's for the sake of our village!' he said and turned around to look at the beautiful day. He heard rustling. _

'_Daichi…' _

_He turned around. Tears rolled down on her face as she just changed the angle of her view in front of her, but hasn't changed anything else in her mimic. Maybe her fingers curled the material of her dress a little tighter._

'_Daichi, what are you talking about, what about kids?… don't you love me at all, Daichi?...' _

_He looked back at the window again and shrugged. _

'_The villa__ge is all that matters to me. I am the Kazekage.' _

_She ran out of the room. The sun still shone and made a damn beautiful day._

The lamp wavered. The hand seals have ended. There was an ancient drawing of blue lines showing around golden points that were supposed to illustrate what would happen at this point of the incantation. It twinkled at him with shining ink and the flame of the lamp wavered again. Window. He had to close the window. He got up and closed it and came back to the scroll again. Who would have known that all of them would make it to the part where more than four people had to lend chakra to make a monsterman…

_The door of his office banged open. No, not opened. Banged open. He looked at the intruder with polite curiosity and smiled to himself ironica__lly. But of course. Who would she ran off to if not to him? In the door stood Yashamaru. She stood behind him, all in tears, trembling. The man, usually gentle and harmful like a newborn cat looked at him with furious glare, his light eyes darkened from rage. _

'_I heard what you wanted to do! And I will not allow it!' he shouted and entered the office. He smiled and offered him a chair, looking at Karura indifferently. _

'_Women not allowed.' _

_He said and she went out as all women had to listen to their husbands. Minato always found it ridiculous but that was how it all worked and it worked then. Yashamaru didn't want to sit down at first._

_After two hours of talking and recreating the idea, his rage smoothened out, vanished, changed into trust. He sat down finally. He talked more. _

'_And what about Karura?' he asked after some time, looking at his with a light, light frown 'Wouldn't it be dangerous for her at such state?' _

'_There's always a danger.' __he said then 'But she is my wife and you know me – I would always look up to her and if anything would show that she is in danger, I would stop the whole thing.' _

_And it was the first lie he uttered. Because even if they developed new jutsus and new possibilities, there was no way of stopping it once started. Even if it would cost somebody's life. Yashamaru nodded, convinced. He nodded back, letting him go. _

_The blond came out and said something to Karura, smiled at her and rubbed her arms and went away. She stood there, looking at the wall like a wooden doll and then she looked at him, fear clearly written on her face. He looked back, not saying anything. He didn't have to. She was alone and she knew it. Wife of Kazekage had no rights at all. _

The scroll moved as he rolled it down, showing more of text and another part of seals, then another drawing of proceeding Shukaku. Now it was more recognizable, had more swirling blue prints and this ugly, ugly smile he'd never forget – the same that chased Gaara every day. He swallowed the saliva in his a little dried up and a little tightened mouth and looked down more. The scroll was big. Just like Karura's fear.

_At first she fell silent. It wasn't very obvious as she always was a quiet person, but he saw it as he lived with her. Then she started constantly crying here and there, while looking at the calendar. She started packing and unpacking things, plates started to fell out of her hands and all in all she just put herself in miserable position. Only three years old Temari started coming to him and asking him why was she sad and where he was taking her as 'mommy said he was taking her away' and Kankuro, being only a small baby started getting nervous and cried a lot more. It lasted for a few days until, for the first time since he knew her, he shouted at her to put herself together._

_And she did, shocked, even if she cried even more, saying he was cruel and a bastard and he had no heart at all because all that counted to him was the village and that godsdamned-_

The light wavered. Ah yes, third incantation of hand seals.

…_but she did put herself together. She smiled and cleaned like before, she took care of herself and didn't mention that again. Only she spent more and more time with kids, talking to them nonstop, like if she wanted to talk herself out for the nearest months. And knowing her situation – she probably did. After all days spent at singing needless lullabies to Kankuro who was fed up with them as sometimes she just sang them whole night long and teaching Temari stuff that mothers taught grown up girls she just was so tired she didn't have time for him. Not that she wanted to touch him at all. After the incident with Yashamaru she just closed herself for him. _

_.__She allowed kisses and hugs and laughed when he laughed but it was all fake as her eyes never did and watched him with something akin to fear and plea. But he was too blinded, to riled up with what he was supposed to do. He had little time as he started doing it and had to learn about massive amount of seals and incantations in such short period of time, before his son would be born. Nothing mattered. Only the sealing scroll. _

He moved the lamp down and watched it, skipping the larger parts, unrolling it and rolling, until he reached the end. The scroll was long and harsh and people needed years to read it, years to learn it, half of life to repeat it, the rest to deal with the fact they could do only that and were useless beside it. And he did it in few months, studying it day and night, until he knew it like the back of his hand. It was Minato's fault, really – he always said that nobody should give up and reach for dreams and he believed him – even then – and reached for his dream come true that was supposed to bring prestige and peace to them all. He reached for it…

_The day before the final happening he lied in bed, tired and drained, regaining his strength and wondering, remembering, repeating. Four medical ninjas were pumping him up to be in the best state for a fight and as later it came out – they did well. Karura spent the whole day with kids, playing with Temari, ending the last parts of wedding dress for a figure that didn't exist yet and then she held onto Kankuro, telling him strange things, like (as ANBU officer told him later) to not be like his father and be gentle and to love her sister and to not forget his mommy…_

_Kankuro, being only little didn't understand all of that, but as Karura kept talking he sensed something was wrong and he cried, making Temari cry as well, but even that didn't stop her from talking all she wanted to them and the choir lasted until he came to the room and demanded silence. Cries were interrupting his resting. _

_After she finally let go of the kids (though she insisted on sleeping with them he made her come to their bed and to stay in there as a good wife should) she dressed up in her best gown and just sat at the edge of bed, not looking at him, hunched, curling around the big bubble of a stomach she carried. 'Daichi…' she spoke in soft, tired tone that she gained from crying 'What would you do if it were a girl?...' _

'_I'd raise her to be good and strong and let he marry whomever she wanted as she would have no value at all.' __he said, not even opening his eyes. She looked at him. _

'_Can't we do that the same with him?' _

_He opened his eyes, looking at her. She seemed to be in hopeless state of resign, her face still pink from crying. _

'_Why would I want to do that, when I can give him a world.' __he said and closed his eyes 'I'm a loving parent, unlike you.' _

_N__ext questions never came, even if he expected them. Soon the lamp was turned off and she lied in the bed on the very verge of it, massaging her stomach and humming another lullaby. 'Twinkle, twinkle little star…' _

Stars. He caught himself, looking at the window instead at scroll, but let go of it as he knew there was nothing left to look at the ancient paper. The sky was impossibly clear, but not many stars came out. No wonder, he was in the centre of the town and nothing compared with the night under the shining masses of mica thrown at the sky in the middle of lonesome sands. He opened the door with one hand, taking the lamp with him and looking at his own people from the observation point. Probably Minato saw it too. And he probably found it more interesting as in Konoha the sky was almost too dark and too blue. He could never get accustomed to how pale was the night above other countries in comparison to his own. Then the night was full of stars too…

_It started normally, they ate the breakfast which she made (for the last time), they talked about somethings and nothings (for the last time) and she wore the most beautiful dress he bought her during their honeymoon (and that was the last time for her to wear that too). Kids were taken away after she kissed them goodbye (Kankuro didn't protest as he was too sleepy at that point of the day, but Temari seemed to be confused about the atmosphere of it all and kept making the goodbyes longer and longer until he shooed her away) and he let her see the house – for the last time. He washed his hands and came out to the prepared room, greeting people along with Elder Chiyo who was supposed to play grand role in the whole act. _

_They opened the scroll and checked the seals made on earth again to not miss any mistake and it seemed that all was well. Then they waited. And waited. And waited for her. Until the guard that was supposed to bring her didn't bargain in the place and announce she ran away. _

_He mobilized half of the town to move and search for her, as he knew that if she got away now she'd probably not show up again before she'd give birth and then there was no chance of doing the ritual. There was also a risk of her going somewhere where they could make her infertile and then all chances would be lost. He could assassinate her after that but he could not get married again and what was the point of it, really? Karura was a good wife so far. There was no point in uglify what was beautiful for the sake of making it more bloody. Absolutely._

_But the search didn't take as long as he expected. After three hours of pointless searching he pondered about sending the ninjas off the borders to look around the desert and look through the old buildings and any possible hidings done for emergency. He shared his thoughts with Yashamaru who seemed to be more than worried for her as she was his sister – I seemed to be the perfect person to talk about his worries at that moment._

_He smiled. He remembered very well how it went. How could he not?_

'_I don't understand why did she do it.' He said then 'Doesn't she think about our village at all?' _

'_I doubt it.' __said Yashamaru opening the bottle of cheap gin he bought for himself for this special occasion. For nerves, for party. His first alcohol in his whole life 'But you know her. She always thinks about safety first. Probably got scared by the whole situation…' _

'_But doesn't she get it where she puts me by doing it? It's a shame that Kazekage's wife is such a coward. I'm supposed to be a pillar of those people and she is supposed to be first to believe in me, Yashamaru.' _

_He looked at him as he poured himself the first glass _

'_I said I would do everything for her I could and I was going to kept my promise. She broke hers.' _

_The blond looked at him, then he slowly closed the lid of the bottle. He looked back, sensing that Yashamaru wanted something from him, reading from his eyes things he thought he saw there or maybe just wanted to see – and smiled at him. _

'_Have you heard that, Karura? I don't know about you, but I think only stupid wouldn't believe into what he just said.' __he frowned, looking at the blond. Yashamaru slowly let go of the bottle and came to his closet, opening it. 'Come on, get out. As you heard, there is nothing to be afraid of.' _

'_Yashamaru!...' And there she was. Wearing the plain, common clothes of a poor which covered her big belly with Kankuro in her hands and eyes yet once again full of fear. He stood up from the chair. _

_Somehow, in the whole chaos, he missed the fact that Kankuro was missing too. And she probably fed him something nasty as he didn't cry at all, just laid there and slept in the whole mess full of screaming and running. For some unknown reason he felt hot, white, burning a n g e r. _

'_What the hell are you doing?' he screamed, getting close to her and practically tearing the baby away from her hands 'You wanted to take him away on the desert? What were you thinking, did you want to kill him? Guards! Guards!' _

'_Better with me than with you!' she shouted at him, desperately trying to get him back to her hands. Kankuro didn't even wake up. 'You've gone crazy, you want to kill me for some stupid ideas you've got put into your ambitious head of yours!-' _

_He got away from her, pushing her back as the guards ran into the room. She looked at him, seeing that Kankuro was beyond her reach she turne__d around and leapt to the blond who just stood there with the full glass in his hand. _

'_Yashamaru!...' she shouted, clutching at his clothes, making him budge and spill the alcohol 'Yashamaru, help me!... Don't let him do it, he's gone mad! Don't let him kill me, I beg you!...' _

_He looked at her with a slight frown, but then he smiled at her and rubbed her arms like he always did. _

'_Nonsense, Karura. Daichi said it's a completely safe operation and you won't even feel it that much. Isn't that right, Daichi?' he looked at him, but didn't even wait for him to nod or protest 'You will see, tomorrow in the morning you will be holding a cute little baby in your arms and we will all be laughing from that. Have faith, sister.' _

_She looked at h__im, obviously petrified. He nodded at guards and they took her by arms, taking her away by force. She fought, but what could she do, being alone against at least ten strong ninjas? She didn't even end the academy with good grades…_

'_How can you say that, Yashamaru? How can you do that to me?' she shouted. The blond just smiled at her, drinking up from the glass 'You're allowing him to kill me! Yashamaru, you're sending your own sister to death! Don't stand like that, do something, I beg you, Yashamaru, Yashamaru!...' _

_She screamed and cried for the whole way down from his room, calling him and begging for help anyone they passed. He gave off the Kankuro to the closest ninja, ordering him to detoxicate the child and got to the ritual room. Then she calmed down. But t was only for a moment as they restrained her and positioned in the right places. _

_Then she started screaming again. And she never really stopped through the whole act – she cursed him, his past and future, mentioned everything she could – beginning from happy moments to sad, from sex to food and cursed it all to seven hells and more. Then, as the ritual emerged, she started cursing everyone she could think of – her acquaintances, his acquaintances, their enemies and allies, people she barely knew and people he mentioned to her after meetings until she has ended cursing the whole village altogether. He remembered hearing names from other villages like Kushina or Minato or sons of Tsuchikage she met only once – but he was sure that she never mentioned two sole names – Temari's and Kankuro's._

_Maybe because she was whom she was or maybe because she simply couldn't do it since the sand interrupted her talking and just made her scream as it- He closed his eyes. He saw blood and he saw corpses in his life, he knew some that had not ended well, he knew how harsh the life could get. Yet, he knew that no one deserved to die that way. No one. And yet, he inflicted it on her himself. And when everything was done and he held the baby that was tiny like a little doll and yet it smiled at him like a monster he moved to the corpse that looked like if it was tore in half, wanting to close her eyes only to notice she was looking at him. And that she was still breathing. He lost his voice. _

_The others didn't notice until she held up a hand, pointing it at him and the baby he held in his arms and held their breaths. Impossible was possible – the cursed sacrifice, the corpse of a torn woman was still alive – even if the sand demon was still devouring all the parts slowly, from the outside. It didn't seem to faze her though. _

'_Gaara.' She said quietly, piercing them with her eyes, but for some reason he doubted she even saw him 'The one who loves only himself and lives only for himself, I curse you too…' she muttered, then she smiled at him, gracing him with one last glance '…I hope you will be the first one who would f__all at his hands.' _

_With those words she fell and the sand devoured h__er, not leaving even bones. New nightmare began. _

It's name was 'Gaara' and from now on he was the ruler of the village who dethronized him from his position. Everything was done under his moods and wants. He learned to not sleep at night, kids learned to not be kids anymore and Yashamaru stopped calling him 'Daichi' and started sleeping at the table with endless bottles of the same cheap gin as that memorable night.

And he had proof of it. He had proof of it – the scroll of a seal lied scattered carelessly on the floor among the other papers like if it meant nothing more than toilet paper. It was the story of his life, his beginning and his end. He made the village rise and shine but then his success ate him from inside and he was not the same anymore. And life in academy? Missions under Jiraiya-sensei? Other dreams and hopes? They belonged to someone else, someone whom he was ages ago. Someone – whom he was not anymore.

'You hear me, Minato?'

The wind blew and made the light waver, putting it out, leaving a line of grey smoke going up in this chilly desert night.

'Maybe you will be satisfied with months but to me eternity sounds too little as all I wanted had been long gone in the past…' So there was no rights and no reason to dream the forgotten dreams and sing the forgotten songs. He shouldn't and wouldn't be afraid of himself because he had nothing to be protected from as the threat ceased to exist ages ago. And yet…

He spent the rest of the night awake.


	8. Chapter Eight: I only wish I could

By the time Minato returned to his rooms, both Kakashi and Naruto were back in bed and deeply asleep. Naruto was a shape on his bed, so curled up his knees nearly touched his chin and he wondered how the hell he managed to breathe like that. He ignored the dry tears tracks on his cheeks as he could do nothing about them, and moved onto his student. Kakashi was still running a bit of a fever and looking under the weather, and for a moment the blond considered maybe staying another day and wait for him to completely recuperate. Then he had an horrible premonition of Daichi going past his hangover and remembering everything that had been said this night –worse yet, understanding it- which prompted him to go back to his own room and make sure all their luggage was ready and they weren't forgetting something of actual importance. He promised himself he would wake up extra early and go get a professional medic to the clinic and get him to heal Kakashi so he would be in perfect conditions for the trip back home. No, he wasn't running away. Such an action would be unmanly and reprievable and unforgivable. He was just strategically regrouping. Very far away.

Feeling twitchy and nervous, he undid the bag and concentrated on going back through the contents one by one, trying to distract himself by making an internal recount of the things he had brought with him and making sure they were where they belonged, his eyes going to the sleeping figure of his son every few moments. What had he done? He had told Daichi the biggest secret of Konoha. Everyone in the village knew it, there was no doubt… Every last one of them knew, if not the reasons the consequences and they affected each one of them, but Naruto had at least been safe from outside forced, and he had just gone and told Daichi everything-

His hands stopped in the process of folding a scroll more tightly than the paper deserved, just slowed down into a complete stop as he stared blankly at it. Everything.

_(You are cruel)_

He hadn't meant to be. He had always felt too much, wanted too much. There had been too many losses in his life. The Second Great Shinobi World War had taken everything from him and by the time he was old enough to start the academy he felt like something hanging from singed threads, a little helpless, broken toy with something big and malicious and alive sneaking and stalking in the backstage and nick-nick-nicking at the threads when it pleased it so.

And so few were left, and he couldn't see the bottom, and if he fell, he didn't know what would happen to him.

All of his life Minato had learned things. Then he pulled them apart and made them better. It was an easy skill; he just had the natural ability to detect flaws and instinctively know how to correct them and make them work. Sometimes it took time and patience, but he always managed in the end, all except in emotional training. That was perfect all on itself, and the only think Minato did on regards of that was to take it literally. Shinobi are just tools.

True… more or less skilled, but each with their own uses. Sometimes tools, weapons grew weak, got dull, and failed. That was what the emotional training was for. Humans had emotions and worries and doubts, and that's when they grew weak and failed. That's when the something nicked at threads, placing him inch by inch closer to the awaiting darkness. If you can't deal with something, then don't. There is always a time and a place where you can afford it, but the battlefield is not the place. Don't think just act. But what did you do when your life was the battlefield?

You did what Namikaze Minato had done. You didn't deal with anything at all. Ever. The bottomless darkness was there, ready, available and so eager to take anything of his that fell there, so ready to gobble it whole, so why not? Everything he didn't want, everything he didn't need went down there, crowding, unwanted baggage. And it was such a relief. It was so much easier to be, to exist, to breathe when nothing else distracted you from it. Breathe in, breathe out, once every second or two and you were doing perfectly fine and it was a waste to remain in the academy when you should already practically be teaching on it. He made genin two months after starting academy.

His teammates and sensei thought him a child and useless baggage, and he let them, what they felt for him was secondary, all he needed of them was for them to do their parts and allow him to learn what was useful. Kenta Akimichi tried to pick up fights with him and he let himself be called a coward when he respectfully declined.

When they saw him in action and actually wanted to talk to him, when they admired and respected him for what he could do, he declined as well. It was as much a waste of time to engage on petty fighting as it was hanging out- and it wasn't until he was selected to represent his village along with a few other selected shinobi in that experiment they had tried to make, see how well they would work against a threat of outsiders that he realized what he had been doing. First day in there had been a boy, not much older than him, only two years of difference. And that's when things had started to break apart for him.

He had never expected to win, two years were no difference when your opponent didn't know how to battle, and they were a world of difference when they were skilled, and Sabaku no Daichi hadn't been just skilled, he had been the best. The star pupil of the famed Sandaime Kazekage, and Minato had thought that if nothing else, it would be a good chance to see some new jutsu and find out what kind of techniques shinobi in Suna had.

He had waited half a day to see the boy do something worth checking, but either he hit to hard or his opponents were too useless, because nothing seemed to so much as make the boy with the oddly reddish brown hair even break into a sweat- well, he was from Suna. It provably took a bit more than some training to make him break into sweat. So when the redhead-brunet had thrown a challenge, he had gone himself.

'_Sempai!" a short boy with blond hair and metallic blue eyes dressed in a white jacket and pants with red accents. Standing alone in the edge of the ring- Alone because the crowd that had been next to him had suddenly parted away as if they didn't want to get confused with the challenger- or maybe as if the crazy were contagious. 'Sempai, I would like to accept the challenge.'_

_The other boy looked at him with something akin to surprise in his eyes, but he didn't laugh or shun him down. _

'_Accepted.' He stated simply and turned to the boy in full stance._

_Minato has stared at the older boy, surprised that he hadn't immediately been shot down, but then he had smiled at him and jumped into the ring, ignoring the background murmurs regarding his sanity and attempts to show off and the older shinobi`s cruelty the same way he ignored anything he didn't care about. _

'_Thank you for having me, sempai.' he said with a polite bow, not assuming any stance yet, merely tensing his muscles slightly to put them into action. 'Whenever you are ready.'_

_The other boy looked at him, then smiled. He slowly let his hand fall down to his side. _

'_My, you waited for starting signal?' He said and looked down suggestively 'First rule of shinobi: even if you sleep – always be ready.' Under the blond's feet glinted the nice, sharp shuriken. _

_Minato didn`t dodge, he caught them. All of them._

'_I appreciate the lesson, sempai.' he said, looking in curiosity at the poison-ladden kunai, admiring the shape for a moment before casually pocketing them on his tight strap. 'Anything else that Suna can teach?'_

_The boy looked at him impassively, but then he smiled and pointed at him. 'Bushin no jutsu - second rule of shinobi – always watch your back.' Then he punched with a kunai, at the last moment rolling it up so it hit with the dull side of the other, circled end of weapon._

_It broke in half the bark of a log- Minato was standing sideways on the side of the ring, holding himself in place with chakra. 'Anything I haven't read in academy books, sempai?'_

'_Maybe that shinobi is not graceful creature…' said the boy and threw kunais at three directions, one exactly at him, which he followed shortly 'And that he doesn't have to do as the rules say?' _

_With those words he made a few seals of 'Doton', making pieces of sand coming from his mouth and threw it straight into his eyes, against academy rules. Before it even stopped coming from his mouth, he tripped him and attacked his back by fists – that was also considered a trick that only unskilled people who wanted to make much noise did._

_Minato had dodged the sand, yet caught the blunt of it with his right eye, and managed another hand seal to put himself away on time, reappearing on the other end of the ring and absently wiping at the scratchy eye with his sleeve _

'_I was hoping for something from your village.' he has said, finally giving up and just leaving that eye closed. Depth perception was overrated anyway. 'I guess I will just have to work for it…' _

_The redhead had only looked at him in silence and then he rose his hands in a seal that seemed to break out his fingers from the joints. He wouldn't have a mere genin to want to be taken seriously. But he didn't deny him that._

_His seal shone visibly in the bright room._

'_Fuuton: The Great Khamsin Tune – Prelude.' _

And that's how it had started. It had been a long fight for genin standards (a little over half an hour) and by the end of it he hadn't been able to help collapsing completely. No one had mocked him for his failure to win (no one had lasted more than ten minutes with the glaring brunet) and he wouldn't have cared if they had or not, as he had found out exactly what he wanted to know. Sabaku no Daichi wasn't just strong- he was brutal. He hurt all over in places he didn't even know it was possible to hurt, and Jiraiya-sensei had scolded him horribly for picking up fights- ridiculous, really. He hadn't picked up a fight, he had very politely accepted a challenge that had been issue for all the people present- why, he had even *asked* the chuunin if he would accept a challenge.

And the mere idea that he might have been picking on the other was stupid- he didn't have time to bother other people. He had things to do, places to be, and the hospital wasn't one of them, that's why he decided to discharge himself some good three days before he really should move. Which was roughly an hour after he had fainted.

He had been walking towards the quarters as he fought with tightening a bandage on his arms that insisted on getting loose with a bottle of water in his hands, when he passed past the ring. It was empty now, with night arriving and the last vestiges of the sun nearly disappearing… yet there was one person in there.

'…_sempai?' _

_He walked down through the stairs this time, not seeing any reason to put pressure on muscles that could use a rest if he planned on needing them soon. The taller male had been just standing in the middle of the ring, painfully straight and glaring at some point in the background (and maybe it was the fact one of his eyes was still bandaged, but he didn't see what was so important about the pile of bricks that was all that remained from the west wall). He was almost next to him by the time he noticed the older boy was still covered in nicks and bruises from their fight. _

'_Did you forget something here? Do you want me to help you search for it?' he asked, looking at the taller male curiously._

_The other boy blinked, like if he had just woken up from a dream and looked at him for a moment like if he didn't recognize him._

_'Ah, no. You wouldn't be able to find it anyway'._

_Minato had just stared at the older boy and then around. _

'_I don't think we left anything here.' He said, his eyes still lost in the landscape. 'I thought I lost a tooth, but it was still there when I woke up, so I guess it just felt like it…'_

'_You're lucky then.' said the other boy and slowly loosened his muscles which seemed to keep tensed on his back 'I wish I could get back some of my things that were taken.'_

'_Oh…' he looked again, not seeing anything that could have been missed the first time he looked. 'Maybe it's for the best. Attachments slow you down.' he said, shrugging a little, then offering the bottle to the older boy. 'Want some water?' _

_The other boy smirked, obviously wanting to make some witty remark, but it died on his lips as he saw the offering. He eyed him suspiciously, then slowly reached for the bottle. _

'_Yes, thank you.' He said and undid the lid, still watching him from the corner of his eye with a slight smile. Once he drank from it, he gave it back. 'It was delicious, but next time don't go off offering it to everyone. Water is more precious than gold.'_

_Minato, who had been raised on Fire country where inundations happened at least once every two years or so and where the last drought had occurred before his grandparents were born, just smiled. 'You looked thirsty.' _

_'I'm made of stronger flesh than you might think'. was the answer as the other boy smiled and ruffled the blond hair a bit 'I get that you're new. Go back to your room, it's getting late.'_

_The blond stared up at him, surprised about being touched so casually by someone he barely knew, but didn't comment on it. He agreed and went back to his room, where his roommates ended up being so annoying he had to leave two hours later to do something else. That was the first time he actually spoke with the redhead. He saw him with his group of fellow ninja from Fire country every now and then when they crossed each other in the hallways, and he never missed a fight when the older nin had one, just as he never missed the fights of people worth watching, but the real second time they spoke, Minato has been in a tiny corner of the scrolls room with half a dozen opened scrolls spread around him, drawing in an unused one while he nibbled on a green apple. _

'_Hey, you. You- ah, it's you.' The other boy shadowed him like a tower when he came closer and hid the light from the faintly buzzing lamp that was hanging from above their heads. He held a light green notepad and seemed to be looking at it thoroughly. 'What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be with your group practicing seals?' _

'_I have permission.' he said without really looking up, pawing around with a free hand he obtained by holding onto the apple with his teeth and holding up a tag marked as permission. Effectively, Minato had gotten one of the teachers to give him access to the room a few hours ago._

_The other boy looked at it closely and nodded quietly, checking something on his piece of paper. He was about to move out, when he glanced at the scroll before the blond. 'Wind elemental chronicles? Aren't you too young for that?' he asked with a disbelieving smile. _

_Minato had made some vague sound that could be taken either way and continued working with the seal he was working in, his fingers already black from half a scroll used on changing the initial lines of the seal._

'_Not like that.' said the other boy, laying the pad on the table and sitting down next to him. 'Your wrist is too stiff and low. Here, look…' He moved his hands in the exact copy of the hands seal that the blond provided with accurate precision. 'See?' _

'_My wrist isn't stiff, it's broken.' He said casually, taking another bite of the apple. 'And you use too many unnecessary hand seals. You should try with rat-horse-dog instead of tiger-horse-hare-dragon-serpent.'_

_The older boy released his seal, looking at the wrist with a frown. Then he stilled and his eyes widened a bit. He hasn't thought about it, obviously. _

'_That's how I've been taught in my family for years.' He said and smiled a little, looking at him with patronizing stare 'Hasn't mommy taught you that giving off such advice to potential enemies might get crucial in the future?' _

_Of course she hadn't. Minato's mother had died at the beginning of the ward, practically before he had learned to say her name. he smiled up at the older nin. _

'_I think it would be worth seeing what you can do with an extra second.' The Sunanin was already impressively fast with the hand seals, possibly as a compensation for how much it took. When in battle, finishing the jutsu before an opponent was everything, and every fraction of a second made the difference. _

'_Come and see, then I'll show you.' said the other teen and got up from the seat and gathered his things 'I accept every brave soul's challenge.'_

_Minato had smiled. _

'_Maybe when I'm done with this…'_

_'I will be waiting.'_

Two days later, the sensei from Hidden Grass he had gotten the permission tag from was being praised by his other teachers for narrowing the hand seals of a summoning jutsu from thirty five hand seals to twelve.

_'Sensei, I'm amazed by what you did.' __the redhead said, standing above the heads of the crowd, hiding his hands in his pockets casually 'But I have an urgent question and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do it later as you seem to be always so busy... Could you tell me how to shorten the seals of Sabaku no Bara jutsu? Tiger-horse-hare-dragon-serpent incantation is seriously too long.'_

_And when the teacher wouldn't give off a straight answer he'd call out Minato from the crowd and ask him if he could maybe tell him something on this as he saw him doing such assignments some days ago._

_That had been the very first time Daichi had made him feel uncomfortable. _

'_Why did you do that for?' he had asked after hours of what felt like being in the wrong side of the interrogation table. Daichi had recognized the seal as the one he had been working in that night and not only had he openly said the teacher hadn't done it, but he had also called out Minato to prove that he had been the one to accomplish it. _

_He had initially refused and feigned ignorance on the matter, up until Jiraiya-sensei finally had enough and publicly scolded him until he admitted it had been him. _

'_Now my sensei is mad at me for lying, yours will probably kill you and even if you survive, you will never pass that class.__'_

_The saffron haired teen smiled at him, chuckling lightly. _

'_Boy, but was that worth it.' He said, looking at the youngster. 'Just like in that song – '…I kissed a boy to start shit, got all the honeys in the club excited…' His face was priceless when I asked that question. He asked for that by not acknowledging my skills for so long.' Then he ruffled the blond's hair and walked away. 'When you don't know if you're going to die next day you might as well play those little rules of 'honor' and stuff they try to teach us in the class.' _

And that was the last time Daichi acted so bold in company of Minato.

Minato had just stared after him, one hand going to his hair to try and fix it as the redhead walked away, wanting to say something that would appropriately express how weird the other was and how stupid what he had done had been, but coming up empty. What did it matter if the old man got the recognition? He had gotten several new bases for seals thanks to that permission tag, and now he probably wouldn't even get to be within near vicinity of the scrolls room until he made jounin. Well, obviously it mattered to the Sunanin. And Jiraiya-sensei. If he had been more in tune with his own feelings and they hadn't been an alien onslaught of unidentified physical reactions, Minato would have understood he was happy for what had happened.

Things happened in the following year. He started to spend more time with Daichi, usually in the form of training and helping him with seals, considering the sensei had somehow miraculously managed to save his post and was decided to cause Daichi to fail that class. Some months later one of Daichi`s teammates died during a mission, and he started spending time on his room, as it was easier to study there than in his own with nosy, loud teammates.

And maybe because he had been worried about how quiet and sullen the other had become. Eventually he started sleeping over when he felt like it, as the older nin didn't seem to mind one way or another, and –unlike his teammates- didn't snore or complained about what hours did Minato go to bed.

And maybe if Jiraiya-sensei hadn't said anything about it, things would have been very different.

'_You shouldn't spend that much time with that Suna kid.' He remembered he had only half been paying attention- he had started to develop a jutsu based on electricity and at the time he hadn't been able to control it without it destroying everything in the immediate area, most of the time including himself. _

'…_why not?' he had asked, not really caring what the answer could be as he had been busy revising the scroll he had created especially for it, knowing the flaw was there, but not seeing it._

_Jiraiya had muttered something about fraternizing with possible future enemy ninja and something else and Minato had sensibly nodded in agreement when appropriate and not heard a single word of what his sensei had said. He probably would have continued like that, if he hadn't overheard what the white-haired sennin had said at the moment. _

'_-and he should start looking for a wife soon.' He remembered stopping then, not because he had been upset, but before the idea was ridiculous. _

'…_but he's fifteen.'_

'_Most youngsters in Suna marry around thirteen. Most of the population is composed by shinobi, and they die young.' Jiraiya had said, litting his pipe and taking a drag of it, exhaling through his nostrils. _

'_Isn't that illegal?' _

'_Not if the parents agree. In Suna, age of consent starts at twelve.' In Konoha it was 16. _

'_Ew.' _

'_Kids grow faster in Suna, Minato.' Sure, into pedophiles, apparently, or so it seemed to his twelve-year-old-self, who had never stopped to consider the ideas of family, marriage, and much less sex. _

'_And what does that have to do with me?'_

His sensei's answer had been a few seconds of contemplative silence, before pointing that one of the lines in the scroll was completely crooked and that had been enough to make him forget completely about it until roughly a month later.

_They lied in a bed, a habit of their that developed from both of the sides. Daichi had a long evening after him, been writing up assignments for possible traits of shurikens flying in the winter night above the unsteady ground – which probably meant sliding to an enemy that attacked – probably sliding too. He never knew and nobody knew as the teacher usually just threw the sentence and made them think of every possible variation of an attack, situation and whole fight – a very long and tiresome job that only older kids above fifteen had been assigned. Minato had yet to experience the pain– that's why the older boy left him play with his hourglass from his home. When he was done, the boy seemed to be asleep so he just got into the bed quietly and turned off the lights._

_The night was serene._

_And oh, how serene it was. Even as the minutes passed – single, in couples, in quadrants – the hawkish eyes still didn't close and gazed at him, shining with whites. Daichi obviously had problems with sleeping lately – or so it seemed as he never talked about it and never admitted it happened. Even after such a long evening._

_At first it was made very, very carefully and non-suspiciously at all – the saffron haired teen (whose hair seemed to gain more of a rust shade in the night) moved closer to the sleeping boy so they touched with arms. Then, like if the gesture itself burned him, he got up looking down at him for some painstakingly long seconds that the never ending 'shhh'ing of a hourglass from Suna provided. Then he leaned down again, propping his head on an elbow and looking down at him. _

'_I never…' could be heard faintly in the silence of the room as he moved his mouth, but barely, only barely. 'I never thought that there will be a day I would choose sunlight over the moon.' _

_And as those words died on his lips, he bended down to steal a kiss._

_He didn't remember almost anything about it. Maybe if he tried, he could get himself to remember exactly how it had been like, how he had felt and what had happened, but that was too much to ask of him right then. All he knew is that he had fallen asleep while Daichi worked on something by the desk, and that at some point he had woken up feeling strangely suffocated and warm. He had blearily opened his eyes, not feeling any threat or reason to feel on guard, and the redhead had been there. Literally there, right on top of him, rough fingers pressing a little too gently against his cheek and face a little too close._

_Daichi had frozen, and Minato had just laid there and stared at him while seconds passed and no one said or did anything. It was only after maybe half a minute of complete stillness that an odd expression had replaced the shocked one of the redhead- something that wasn't decision as much as stubbornness, and his hand had moved again. The dry rough feeling of finger pads trailed down his cheek and to his neck, and stayed there for a moment massaging a spot beneath his jaw that made the blond blink and shift lightly- it made him feel a faint anthill-like sensation beneath his skin, the awkward sensation strangely pleasing._

_He remembered lying on his back in bed while Daichi petted him like some potentially dangerous animal that needed to be gentled and not thinking anything at all, just being there and feeling the surprisingly delicate way the other could touch someone else. And all of the sudden he had realized he wasn't thinking of nothing at all, he was thinking so many things at once that he couldn't even hope to put apart, but what he remembered feeling was fear. All of the sudden everything was wrong and confusing and terrifying, and thing that had been certainties shifted and twisted on themselves with the agonic shrieks of bending metal. He had made his life coherent again, he had placed himself in a safe are and now Daichi was trying to push him out of it, toss him where he didn`t know how to act and how dared he…? The age of consent in Suna was twelve. He was twelve. __'Sempai…' he said softly, and by then he was almost brushing lips with the older boy. _

_Daichi stopped again, staring down at him fixedly, his hand still stroking that spot on his neck that made him want to squirm. _

'…_.you remind me of my brother.' _

_He smiled._

_Daichi sprung up from him like if he was burned, staring at him with eyes opened impossibly wide. Then, like if something was rushing him, he turned on the other side of bed, tucking himself into a cover very tightly, pale as snow, almost shining in the moonlight. _

'_Go to sleep, Minato.' He whispered with trembling voice and froze. He lied like that for the rest of the night._

_Minato hadn't. He had spent the rest of the night waiting for the other to fall asleep and at some point he remembered wondering why had he said such a thing. Daichi didn't remind him of his brother. Minato had only had a younger brother and he had died with his mother when he was barely a baby; and yet the first thing that had left his lips had been such a thing. Why? And he waited, and waited, and Daichi didn't sleep that night, and at some point he remembered thinking `I caused this.` _

…_and it wasn't a remorseful kind of thought, it wasn't something he regretted and would like to apologize for. Maybe if Daichi hadn't made that face and had slept. `I caused__ this and all I had to say was…` Something awful. _

_How easy._ He couldn't believe that all it took to hurt someone as strong and decided as Daichi were such simple, childish things. It made him feel strangely good and powerful… it made him feel like that living thing cutting threads, and for once, they weren't his own. That had been the first time he had truly been aware of how important he was to the other, and like most things that unsettled him, he had chosen to discard it. After that things had changed, and Minato had decided to go back home to train some with Sarutobi-sensei. He came back a year later, and he had been honestly happy that he had been placed in the same group as Daichi. He had been happy because he didn't remember what had happened a year before.

He was a bit worried because this time they had been separated in teams of three, and at the moment, he had been placed as captain of a team composed by Daichi and some kid from the agonizing Whirlpool village that he had honestly thought to be a boy for at least three weeks. At the beginning things were hard, because Daichi treated him like a stranger and Kushina either openly opposed him or agreed with him and then did whatever she wanted, and the team's equilibrium had not only been inexistent, but pretty much could be read in negatives.

It took most of the year for everyone to find out exactly where did each belong in the group, but they had managed. It turned out that his spot was right in the middle, for some reason, and he liked being there. He didn't know when it happened, but at some point he must have said something- done something, and Daichi had looked at him just as he had before, and for some reason that had made him feel happy. And it was easy, because between Kushina and Daichi, it was so much easier to just talk and be with him. She spoke too much, too loud, never listened to what he said and perpetually defied her- at some point he had concluded he hated her.

She was a danger to herself and others, she acted more like a civilian than a ninja, and as for emotional training? Minato doubted she had ever heard the word. And he fell for her. He didn't know how or when, much else why, his feelings never changed, and he could never go into mission without wondering if she'd die or pondering if he shouldn't kill her himself, but at some point he had done something… And all of the sudden Kushina and Daichi, who had never had much of a problem with each other would start fighting.

Not to death, like shinobi did, and they still covered each other's back as the group demanded, but there was an undercurrent of animosity there, and sometimes Minato had the feeling he himself was the one encouraging such a thing by not picking sides and feigning obliviousness. In the end, he had chosen Kushina. Not because he couldn't have loved Daichi, and not because maybe he couldn't have had both of them- shinobi needed to marry. It was an unwritten rule, get married and have children, and once you had those you could do whatever you wanted because your duties would have been fulfilled-

He had chosen Kushina because he loved her and wanted her and because she had fought for him as harsh as she could and he had loved her for that. Daichi had done the same, but he had his limitations, he had his people to look after, he lived too far away, it would just have been too complicated. And yet he had never showed it changed anything. He had never stopped encouraging them to fight, had never stopped enjoying the way Daichi looked at him. He had taken a lover of his own and let Daichi take a wife. He hadn't felt jealous of her- and Kushina had been right, she wasn't intruding in what his place in Daichi's heart was, and that's why he could accept her, and why he could like her…

But he still had left halfway through the night to go have sex with his lover. And why had he done such a thing, why had he left Daichi alone in his last bachelor night with people that weren't really his friends and that he wasn't close to? Why, if not to make him feel punished, even when he wasn't mad?

_(You are cruel__)_

Sneaky, manipulative and cruel. Just like the Fox.

_(You are cruel__)_

He clutched at the tunic covering his chest, knowing he was hurting himself but not being able to feel it- the brand of the Fox was there, too, and he would never feel anything else there.

'I'm sorry-' he gasped, the air feeling cold and dry against his lips, against dark eyes that refused to water. 'I'm sorry… I don't know how else to be.'

He hadn't come back here not only because of Naruto, but because he was scared of himself. He had spent over twenty years telling himself he was doing all right, that he hadn't felt pain, that he didn't think and obsess over his losses, and it wasn't until Kushina had died that he had realized he had hardly done anything else. He had pushed everything that he could ever grow attached to an isolated himself, had made a chore out of breathing and simply existing so he could live. During that period of his life he had always felt sort of superior, slightly condescending towards other shinobi that died, that broke and quit… He didn't have weaknesses. What weaknesses? He had nothing, and so he had nothing to lose.

It wasn't until Kushina had died that he realized how alone he had been until he met Jiraiya-sensei, until he befriended Daichi, until he loved Kushina-

And it had been then that he had realized that all he had done had been a desperate attempt to test them- test the people he loved the most, the ones he wanted the last to hurt. He had wounded them over and over to make sure they would never leave him. He hadn't meant to hurt Daichi like that. He had wanted to hurt him, but he had never understood the degree-

_(__Because he had died, then, in the middle of the war. Because the thing inhabiting the body of a child that had died was something big and scary with red eyes and sharp, sharp teeth, the kind of thing that if not given what it wanted, would take everything else it could)_

And… that was over. Karura was dead and Kushina was dead. He had tried to kill his son and now he lived with the monster inside him, and Daichi had shackled himself to his sins and let them wear him.

There was nothing left, and he still felt young and lost and confused. But he was also tired of these things and these games. Daichi had to come to Konoha. And if he did…

When he did…

Slowly, he moved to the window and sat down on the sill, looking at the impossibly dark sky, so many stars that they looked like bright dust than actual constellations. He sat and waited for the night to be over and a new day to arrive. He wasn't twelve anymore.


	9. Chapter Nine: With eyes wide shut

He wasn't as nervous as he had initially expected to be about meeting again with the Kazekage, mostly because he had other things in his head. Namely, his child. Naruto just wasn't himself. He had seen his son sad before, had seen him cry himself to sleep and stare longingly at the way groups of children playing, never inviting them to join, but there had always been an underlying anger, some source of energy to it.

Now, Naruto still looked like if he had cried most of the night, which he had, but he also looked to be not entirely there, and for maybe the fifth time in the day, he checked his forehead to make sure he wasn't going to come down with a fever.

'Baby, do you want to stay another day…?' he asked concernedly, not feeling anything amiss on the temperature or on the flow of chakra. Maybe going through the desert with a child that was obviously about to come down with something wasn't the best of plans.

The little blond stared at him with dull cerulean eyes, and for a moment he looked like if he would agree- say something, at least, but then the Kazekage appeared, and Naruto wordlessly took Kakashi`s hand and moved behind the jounin's back, partially shielding himself in the first show of hesitance he had ever seen in him. Minato stared after him, worry written in his features.

The Kazekage sparred the little blond a look that was more of a disinterested glance than an actual gaze and moved up to look Minato directly in the eye. His face showed nothing but polite indifference, though the shades under his eyes and falling eyelids made him look more tired than threatening. Yet, the posture was straight and oozed of freshness as the clothes he wore were brand new – probably never even worn before. They flashed with white like teeth in the face of tanned farm workers and made his eyes look less outstanding, blemishing with red in strange, unique way.

He held himself straight.

'Hokage-sama' he said, coming closer with dignity and stopping just in the right spot 'Thank you for visiting the village and keep safe in your way home. Sunagakure always will welcome you back with opened arms.'

He rose his hand, waiting for the similar gesture. It felt somewhat ironical, somewhat bitter and sweet at the same time that they still could touch with such difference of ages and distance of pasts and presents and after all they had and all they lost. But sometimes such a simple gesture as handshake held much more value than it is suspected to.

Minato turned towards the redhead, his previous expression dissolving as he stared at the other man, a small wave of the same fear he had felt the previous night taking him before he managed to push it away.

'Kazekage-sama…'

He smiled at the older man. It wasn't the usual smile he wore, this one was somehow more hesitant, probably because it was one of the rare serious ones he gave. His hand slid on the older man's and didn't take his palm and much as grip it.

'Konoha will expect you three months from now. If you don't come I'll do horrible things. Like… leaving the water running.'

It was a proven fact that the fastest way to drive a Sunanin completely mad was to let the faucet dripping. The water conservation was so ingrained on their psyche that it couldn't be turned off even when they were in countries that didn't warrant it. Minato smiled a little just from thinking about it. Kushina had loved to wash her teeth very slowly and thoroughly while she let a thin stream of water dribbling from the tap so she could clear her brush. In the meantime Daichi just stared at her while a net of veins slowly spread and throbbed through his forehead, developed a healthy tic in the eye and on one particularly epic occasion started foaming at the mouth.

For a moment the face of Daichi made a grotesque mimic of 'no you wouldn't dare' and 'you must be joking, what do I care', but then it smoothened into the indifference yet again, showing no interest at all. Only the perfectly mediocre nails of his hands slightly bit at the skin of Hokage's palm.

'Thank you for invitation.' he said not moving, looking almost like a statuette when the wind blew and moved his clothes, making it fly like giant grotesque parts of white petals or maybe flames 'The message about future possible arrangements which will be held for moving to Konoha will be sent to you a few weeks a prior. In case of my inability to show up a messenger will be sent to hand over my apologies. Suna has a very tight schedule, you understand that.'

The white eyes flashed for a moment with a threat and pressure was put on the last three words ever so slightly – but yet, very visibly. Because internally Daichi just wanted to laugh. Laugh in the blond's face and walk away flicking him off in the way he hadn't done even as a kid. Whatever Minato was trying to pull on him again he was not going for it anymore – he was too old for that and too tired of it. He got his treatment from chronic wanting during years and stopped reaching out for something that seemed to be always beyond his reach.

They changed and aged – did Minato not see that? Or maybe it was just him who aged…

Minato stared at the older man for a moment, oddly enough his smile relaxing a bit.

'I'll… hug you,' he uttered in a sinister whisper, as if he were describing some especially slow and painful torture. '… in public.'

Something akin to panic has showed in the black pupils of Kazekage as his eyes widened slightly and stayed that way. He still didn't move, though the nails of his hand just seemed to bit onto the skin of Hokage's hand only a little more – again.

'I will put that into consideration.' he said, paling a little.

If he did that, he would never live it down by public, losing the opinion of steely leader and would never be able to live through it at nights for completely different reasons. He'd now start hissing at the blond, but he had to keep in mind that his brat and his brat of a guard were watching and he had to keep his head in the official stance. So he didn't hiss verbally. But somehow he felt that doing it initially was not scaring Minato off for one a bit.

Minato smiled again, somewhat softer, something in him giving.

'Daichi.' No `kazekage`, no `sama`, no `kun`, no old nicknames or jokes.

The other man budged, visibly wanting to take step back but stopping himself from doing that by sheer will. It would be viewed as offending if he broke the handshake in such crude way. He didn't spoke up, but yet his eyes flashed with desperation of whatever Minato was going to do now to not do it because it made him too uncomfortable already as the guarding brat looked at them both with something more than curiosity and it seemed to be contagious to the little spawn he took care of. The sand crooked as he breathed. Somehow, he didn't even notice that his hand was more of clawing Minato's hand instead of just holding it.

Minato suddenly let go of the grip, taking steps back in a way that suggested he was doing it by inertia more than actual conscious effort. For a moment, the marks that the redhead had left on his hand were stark against the softly tanned skin, before disappearing in the sleeves of the robe.

'…the only brother I ever had died when he still was a baby.'

Without waiting for a reaction, Minato put the Hokage`s hat in place and turned around, pausing just long enough to pick his son up before quickly making his way out of the doors barring the Hidden village of Sand from the endless desert.

The other man watched the blond and his retinue vanish behind wooden gates of his empire only to get swallowed by wild sands and even more brutal heat that waited for all, experienced or naïve, to gnaw at them and watch them suffer like naked worms on a sizzling frying pan. He slowly let his hand fall to his side, feeling how it tingled, still feeling the warmth of body filled with vivid wind induced chakra and felt how his nose was attacked again and again by salt, dust and sandalwood soap in which he had washed all his clothes he wore today.

He watched the gates until they closed and then and only then he allowed himself to blink and add the smallest of the frowns to take a seat on his face.

'What the fuck was that supposed to mean?'

And he knew Minato and his retinue won't be the only ones who will suffer from now on. Somehow he knew that he will be the one whose sufferings will last longer. Much longer.

He spent first few nights after departing of the blond on hard couch in the middle of his living room as it was the most hideous place to sleep on and thus – he didn't sleep at all, falling into short periods of coma that he didn't even notice that passed as they were dreamless and could last from a few seconds to hours and gave rest to the body that after fourth night – practically howled for it. But besides that he worked like usual, he ordered people like usual and he moved and talked like usual. Only at nights he sat down on the couch and flicked on and off the old lighter, thinking about everything and everything else. Especially those words.

'The only brother I ever had died when he still was a baby.' He thought back and forth, backward and forward and yet, he still couldn't understand the message.

Minato never told him about having baby brother. He never ever mentioned it as he rarely spoke about his parent and family at all. At the times they lived in there was an unspoken rule of not talking about the past as the past was the present day and present time – being also they future as they were not allowed to think about tomorrow. Was it a key or a code? Maybe some kind of anagram or riddle? He tried thinking about that could be understood under the words of 'death' and 'baby' and he came out of labyrinth of meanings more tangled than he was when he came in.

Was it freedom he talked about? Freedom and innocence? Did he mean that his innocence died long ago? That could make sense, but what did it have anything to do with everything – they both knew that and there were no issues on that matter. But if he meant sadness, then his saddened innocence was…

…an even bigger amount of blabber than Minato was actually know of speaking and it didn't make sense as a whole either. He didn't know.

And after the eleventh night of sitting and pondering, when he drank all coffee he had in the house and houses of his servants and had to drink tea because importing coffee always took days – he fainted on his own desk from the lack of sleep and stress. He fainted, banging his head on a desk and letting go of a cup of tea he was holding in his hand and spilling it (luckily) on a carpet and not the documents as he managed to hide the scrolls which he scattered away some time ago.

He was found out by an ninja that wanted to hand in a routine report and carried away to the bed immediately as he once told to not get taken to hospital but to call the med to him. As he was told later, he was pale and trembling all the time, spitting some bits of sentences without sense which meant actually 'death', 'babies', 'damned coffee' and 'pristine blue'. He all couldn't tell what was he dreaming about, because all he remembered actually was the fact that he lied in his bed reading a book and waited to get to the ending of something important. In the middle of sentence of some story that made no sense Karura caught him by arm and demanded a kiss for goodnight. He remembered turning to her and then… Meds above him and the scream in his ears that was none other than his.

He was ordered (asked politely) to not overwork himself because his body only made it that far. He agreed, annoyed, lying openly about it and not caring at all. He knew very well what he needed and he couldn't wait with it anymore. Minato made no sense and by this he made his life chaotic and absurd – so he had to stop it. Once the door of his bedroom closed he moved back to his office, circling around the stain of tea on the carpet and caught the phone in his hand.

'Baki.' he said, sitting down on the chair but immediately standing up as the seat tempted him too much into sleep again 'Come to my office, I have mission for you.' And he hanged up the receiver. Not five seconds has passed when the ordered ninja showed up in front of him with a serious look on his face, always ready for his orders, always loyal to the family. He looked at him with tired grimace, not knowing how much more he resembled his youngest now than his second child and slowly crossed his arms behind his back. 'Baki, can you still tame Gaara as you told me once you could?'

The other man nodded sharply, curtly, catching his eyes and staring at them with honesty and dedication.

'Yes, Kazekage-sama. I still can do this.' was the sharp answer. Daichi smiled with satisfaction. The man came out of the room two hours later. In order to go back to Konoha as caretaker of his youngest and messenger of a scroll with highest priority of secretiveness he had to start preparing himself a few weeks later. Which meant he had no time. Daichi sighed, looking through his window on a orange sunset. At least one matter was cleared.

Twelfth night of flicking on and off the old lighter was a pure torture as his body started to learn through the pain of bullying the body with induced insomnia how to sleep awake and how to dream awake. That meant he practically fought himself as he sat, opening and closing the object and staring at the floor unblinking and at the same time being in other world. *click*

Lighter on _hands made of warmth roamed across his body, asking for permission to touch and to taint _Lighter off _and he agreed, letting it go and letting it trail unknown passages on his skin, scrapping it lightly, holding him_ Lighter on _and humming with lullabies the notes of love and lust _Lighter off _and they were so tanned and so nicely shaped like they never were he brought them to his lips wanting to kiss insides of delicate palms _Lighter on _and when he did, feeling how the body hugged and admired him from behind his mouth caught on something strange_ Lighter off _and it was a faint bracelet of reddish marks made by mediocre sharp nails_ Lighter on-

He let the lighter fall down from his hand and hit the floor as his body shook with completely dry sob of hopelessness as he got back to reality with a gasp. Bracelet of marks!...

'Gods, please, free me from this insanity!...'

The twelfth night of flicking on and off the old lighter was a pure torture as his body started to learn through the pain of bullying the body with induced insomnia how to sleep awake and how to dream awake. That meant he practically fought himself as he sat, opening and closing the object and staring at the floor unblinking and at the same time being in other world.

*click*

Lighter on…

_-I hope you are happy now… _

The lightly flushed face turned to him, the light blue eyes observing him with a that kind of smile in eyes that would reach lips if it wasn't so dark in the room. And yet, the fire danced in them and the laughter was still clear to spot.

_-And like always, you have no manners..._

Lighter off.

Silence.

Lighter on.

Delicate, smooth palms lied on his arm, the smile visible and clear in the light flame. He didn't turn to face the squinted eyes and didn't move to move the hair that fell on his face when the figure hunched to lay the head on his shoulder, breathing into his neck with quiet puffs of air.

_-Are you sad?_ – was the question.

Lighter off.

-No. – he spoke into the silence of the night.

Lighter on.

_-You are._ – was the murmur, followed by the laughter that could be described as chiming of the smallest bells he ever heard or could ever imagine _– You are sad that I won and that you lost. You never had any chances, Daichi…_

-Shut up, Kushina.

Lighter off.

Silence. The dust falling quietly on the floor, rolling on the carpet, through the door…

-Am I going crazy? She is dead.

Lighter on.

_-Yes, I am, Daichi._

He moved his hand a little to look at her. She lied on the floor, bold and tomboyish like the first time he met her, the long hair of her short now and tucked into whirlpool of pinkish red, the color he never saw in the Suna – never then, never now. Compared to her – his hair was like hundredth years old wine standing next to strawberry lemonade.

-Why are you haunting me.

More of a statement less of a question. He knew, and yet he didn't know.

_-I am not haunting you. I am only an hallucination… you haven't slept for so long, your body is betraying you. _

Lighter off.

For no reason.

Lighter on.

He didn't look up and yet he knew that she was sitting on the other side of sofa and smiling at him in her first dress she wore to the mission. It was torn on the side as it was awfully nonfitting for the mission and yet, she and her grown hair looked fairly beautiful. He remembered how Minato looked at her and how she looked at him. Triumphantly. He couldn't wear less nor he couldn't wear beautiful clothes. First – it cost too much and he didn't have many to put into misery and second – he wouldn't look sexy, but funny. Not because of not fitting – but because he was a man. Woman could add sexy parts to the mission and do it with smile of a sweet idiot but still be pretty – a male couldn't at all. She beat him then.

_-Why don't you go to sleep, Daichi? This has ended long time ago… what are you afraid of?_

-You?

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

Other side of room, his favorite chair. Wedding dress. Beautiful.

_-Are you still jealous of a memory? You said this has ended and that it doesn't matter anymore, Daichi. So many times you said it before going to bed and laying your head near your beloved wife… were you lying?_

-I was not lying.

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

The same chair. The same dress. With Minato. He sat and looked at him in his wedding clothes, beautiful, healthy, happy. Like then. He didn't look up. But he saw them.

-I had a wife, I have kids. I'm happy. The chapter is ended. I lead a new life. I don't need anyone.

_-And yet we're here._

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

She stood up, wearing now much more plain dress, the one she wore late at wedding night, without jewelry and adds. Probably changed after playing with Minato legally in their own bed since the blond was in different clothes? He stood up too.

-I forgot.

_-You just forgot._

-What's the difference?

_-It hasn't died. It's easy to remember what's forgotten._

Lighter off.

He swallowed. His mouth felt dry and it was difficult to move them from some time now. His throat hurt.

Lighter on.

They were closer now, like if they moved. They looked at him in their normal outfits of teenagers they had when they didn't have any missions.

_-Why don't you go to sleep, Daichi. It will be much easier then. Just give up, give into what do you want and then wake up to suffer that it was all a dream. You know you want to be lied to…_

-I am not sleepy.

-_You're a horrible liar._

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

They sat on the sofa on his both sides.

_-But you are. You only want to sleep and dream of better life. You never wanted to marry, remember? You only did because council had to be sure that you will leave flesh and blood after you__ retire… she was only innocent and naively in love with you because everyone loved you. Young, strong, handsome and already went up so high… it didn't make any difference if it was her or the person next to her. They all admired you the same. And yet you chose her, because when she smiled at you, you saw her eyes…_

-They were green.

Lighter off.

Weren't they?

Lighter on.

They both lied on his shoulders, looking in front of him, deep in thoughts, old and serious. Her hands lied on her belly that developed into fine balloon, full of water and living piece of flesh.

_-Because they weren't blue. Blue scared you, remember? There was this blonde, stupid girl who would never see and get it like Karura did… and yet you chose her, because they weren't what you wanted. You just want to suffer, Daichi. You always do everything to not feel happy_.

_-You don't even say 'I love you' to your mirror. _

He budged. The other voice was so faint and yet – so deep and so like not Minato's. And yet – all like Minato's. He felt his hand tremble.

-I do not like to suffer.

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

She kneed in front of him. Minato hugged him from behind, almost laying on his hunched back.

_-But you always choose to suffer when you can not to._

-I once chose something different.

_-But it was a blind path and you knew you would anyway. It's in your bones, Daichi. You go through that every day. Your body only wants to sleep and long for something for awhile. And you deny yourself that. You stab yourself. _

_-In the back._

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

_-You will die, Daichi._

-I will not die.

She looked at him and laughed, laughed again with this crescendo of small, petite bells that could only be made by the most talented hands and chimed in the most wealthy house.

_-You'r__e committing suicide._

The blond looked at him from her side, holding her lightly, smiling at him, mischievously, viciously.

_-How would you like to be loved? _

He sat in silence, pondering wondering.

-I don't want to be loved by you.

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

She stood beside him, smiling, watching. Minato propped his head on elbows on his knees and looked at him.

_-With passion? Or with indifference? _

_-With romance_ – she said – _Don't you know? He is like a prince that got cursed into stone…_

-I don't know that story.

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

The blond sat next to him, his torso naked, tired after sparring, in the heat of humid forest. She was a little girl he saw on photograph once, just before wedding started. The pride and best prize of Minato's hunting. He wore it on his heart. Not a nice photo of young woman. A faded photo of little girl. Maybe it was a spoof. Or maybe it was a dream… it felt so untrue and so unstable as a memory.

_-Because it doesn't exist_ – she said in childish voice – _Once upon a time there was a prince that did many bad things and who fell in love… he was a very sad human, that's why when he was dumped, his heart broke into half and led him in the middle of the brook and turned him into stone._ _Nobody knew how to curse him back and nobody really wanted to because, just like body, his heart was dark and hardened too… that's why soon everyone forgot about the prince in the runnel._

_-Interesting. Tell me more about it. _

He didn't spoke up.

Lighter off.

Lighter on.

Impossibly close, both of them, in their pajamas, light pink, light green, on his knees, holding onto his neck and breathing into his neck and ears… he didn't move an inch.

_-White flowers grew over his body and soon the kids and kids of those kids and even grandchildren of children of those children went to the brook to look at the sculpture and admire it. Every summer more and more flowers bloomed over him and yet, the prince just stayed the same, day and night, peace or war, winter, summer and every day of a year… the curse remained because nobody really knew that the stoned prince was just the same as everyone else, only very, very alone._

_-What would such a prince want? _

_-Love, obviously. _

_-Would he want to be kissed? _

_-Probably. _

_-Should I kiss you, Daichi?_

He closed his eyes. The bodies didn't weight at all and their breath was neither warm or cold. And yet, he felt goose bumps.

Lighter off.

He felt tired. He had enough. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sleep… He couldn't allow himself to go to sleep.

Lighter on.

_-Should I kiss you, Daichi?_

The blond stood in front of him, both arms on the other sides of sofa, pinning him almost if it wasn't for his hunched state. Kushina lied on his back, pushing him forward even more.

-Leave me alone.

_-Should I kiss him, Kushina? _

_-Why? You're mine. You have no reason to do that. If he wants to be kissed he can go to sleep. _

_-Yes, he should. Maybe then he would understand that my brother died when I was very little._

He trembled a little. He finally looked up. Minato looked at him with warm smile and cold chips of ice in the eyes.

-I don't understand what are you saying.

_-You don't have to. I say this to torment you._

-Please, stop.

He ignored him, looking at the woman.

_-What's happened to the prince, Kushina? _

_-Who knows? He just wanted to be held by someone who would really love him, but nobody wanted to hold a stone. I think he just died._

_-Why would you think that? _

_-Because he never really existed. He was cursed by me and I can kill him. And he can be forgotten. _

-Just forgotten? – he asked. His throat hurt…

_-Forgotten, like a misplaced puzzle. There was never a place for you between us, Daichi. You doesn't belong. He is mine… and you can die here._

He looked at Minato.

_-Don't worry, I won't be sad. I never needed you. I just came here lately because my council wouldn't stop pressuring me about that bastardized child of yours. _

-It's not really a child, Minato. It's a monster.

_-If a monster is a child of a monster then it's his child. Am I wrong, Daichi?_

-Leave me alone…

_-Your dreams are not even funny and you know you can't make them true…_

-No…

_-A coward. Run, run away, run until you die and regret everything – and I'll take what I won and I shall just laugh in your face-_

-LEAVE ME ALONE!

Lighter went off by itself as it fell from his hand on the floor.

And when he was ready to just go and literally bang his head on the wall as he just didn't know how to free his head from those images, the most sleepy on the world Temari came out of her room and looked at him like if he was stupid.

'Daddy… shut up. I can't sleep.' she said, looking through almost closed eyes at the lighter on the floor. Normally he would have scolded her for such an impolite language toward him and such lack of respect, but at such state of mind he just took her by the hand and got her to her own room to her own bed. He tucked her in the covers like if she was an egg who was supposed to be heated by sheets instead of mother hen – and she looked at him like if he was the most useless idiot on the world and grabbed his hand by his two fingers, not letting him go. What could he do? He stayed. And eventually, the sleep took him to the resting place again. This time without nightmares.

Next night he also spend in her bed, closely curled to her little body. The day after that – Kankuro joined them both. In the middle of the night the bed seemed to be too little for the three of them so he just took both of the kids to his own bedroom and slept with them on king-sized bed of his that hadn't seen him from two weeks. On the way there he wondered if not to take Gaara with himself but then he remembered that the redhead was not allowed to sleep at all and he left him in his room without even looking inside.

He heard that the sand followed him, greedily watching them, felt the jealousy and the laughter of the beast that now gained yet another point into urging the kid to sleep – and he knew he made another mistake as a father – but he really could care less.

Gaara was not any average kid and as an insomniac monster he didn't even have his own bed and was never taught how to lay in one – even when he was little he was left on the cold tiles or the sizzling hot sand outside, making him cry nonstop and making the monster lash out at everyone in the least good moment – but at least keeping him awake. If he could do anything about it he would – ages ago. But as the experience of the Diary of Second Kazekage who held the Shukaku in himself for years and experience gained later – he knew he could only make Gaara lay on the cold floor again and nothing else. So he glared at the sand that froze and splattered on the floor before his doors (as always) and closed the said door. And he finally slept well. So all was good. Or – at least he thought it was.

The main hit came in the worst possible moment. Though if he ever somebody told him it would, he would never believe him. More – he would laugh them off in the face. And yet a month later…

It was a bright hot day. He didn't wake up because he hadn't go to sleep for past two days preparing for the press conference and interviews on the party that was supposed to be held from early morning till late night - even if the sun hit directly the earth and made the sand sizzle and squirm under the heat, making the skin wrinkle and eyes to water. Everyone was waiting for it. The opening of grand theatre in the centre of Suna.

It was supposed to be opened weeks ago, but because of his condition he kept on moving the date forward and forward till it reached the hilt of possibility. The day that started was considered the worst to actually do this, but he had no choice – any more waiting and the people would start lashing their dissatisfaction on him. He got up from his desk feeling a little dizzy and stiff from the night. Also, his jaw was pretty sore from non stopping talking to the mirror back and forth – the speech was supposed to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the beginning of fiesta so he had to make it good and he did. His diplomacy skills were always high so he had no problems on that side.

He looked at the calendar and checked on his bandages – the wounds from the fire that consumed everyone that wanted to touch a sealing scroll were light but were healing slow. He started wearing a lot of white after that so anybody barely noticed – and if they did, they thought it was another part of his clothes instead of being regular band aids. It didn't really matter anyway. He knew that he would have to renew them once he will want to give the scroll to Baki so he was prepared to wear them for longer span of time. He glanced at the mirror for one last time, put the kage's hat on and set off to the theatre.

The place before the main building was big, but it was overflowing with people. They came in early morning hours and stayed until the sun was up high and until everything was burning under its merciless glare, but they didn't mind. How did they do it – he couldn't understand. He lived in Suna for whole his life and he knew his people and knew that weather, but he rarely felt such a suffocating heat. From the look of it one would thought that air should be freshened up, but at those lands the blue sky with high temperature meant only dryness and actually – lack of air.

Even as he was dressed up all in white, minus his blueish kage's hat and light blue stripes on his body he had troubles breathing. It felt like if the heat itself wanted to actually get into his chest and blow him from the inside, frying him up. How some people who hadn't got their hats on or wore many blackened clothes could stand it, he didn't understand. But it was not his problem. The land was hard and never treated them with mercy. If they were ready for – so was he.

He stood up, going to the microphone and slowly took off the neckerchief to get close to the shining metal (though he was a little afraid of getting too close, the surface of it seemed to be boiling – whole place was in the wrong side of the building, directly taking the hit of rays; he was glad he had his hat on and he didn't have to take it off) and started off his speech.

-Dear Sunanians… we gathered here yesterday to present you with opportunity of seeing the opening the grand theatre… - he spoke and thousands of eyes turned to him, presenting him with ultimate silence and attention. Yes, that was it – the obedience of whole Suna and power of Kazekage's authority. No other village listened to their kage like this did. No other kage had so much power he could order them to jump into fire and they would. No other. He could be proud he got so high into so good place. He had good reason for that. And speaking of fire…

He droned on and on, the patience and attention of the crowd never wavering and never shutting off, but the sun was different. It got higher in the sky and there were already three fainted people on the place (thankfully, the accidents were taken care of quickly as meds were present at the evening also – as participants and workers at the same time) – and he really could understand why. Even if he wore light white clothes he felt like if he was in the oven, sweat rolled off his face with rivers, making the collar of his neck damp and salty as the dampness dried up instantly.

He knew he had to look bad as the people who were the closest to him were all red and sweating too, but he was determined to end at least bigger part of his speech as he put much effort into it. But it was easier said than done. His jaw hurt him much more than earlier and it got tired quicker on the heat – probably the temperature had something to say here, the blood boiled in him, lazily going through his veins and the dry and hot air just sucked on the dampness of his lungs, making it feel uneasily pressured, so with every breath he felt like if his chest was squeezed shut or too full of air at all.

Also, the first symptoms of nausea started hitting him when he remembered through the part about 'mind's vine' that he forgot to eat breakfast and was standing here hungry (it was due the fact he was waiting for party full of food anyway).

He took a sip of given water for fourth time even when he just wanted to suck it all from the bottle, and he did that only because people on the place had no water to drink at all. He was only going through the half of his third sheet of his speech when he heard:

-Oh my gods, Naoto? Naoto! Meds! Meds! Naoto fainted again!

-Maybe you should take him home, lady. He doesn't look too well…

-What are you talking about, you old prune? Naoto came here especially to hear the great Kazekage's speech! And it's a she, where do you have eyes that you don't see her chest?

He stopped his speech, seeing that the crowd lost half of its attention, concentrating on two loud women, one being a mother and the other – an old woman in ragged clothes. He used that moment to take another sip of water and he showed with his hand where exactly the ruckus was so the meds could get to the right direction faster and closed his eyes for a moment. Gods, what a hellish day.

-I'm really sorry, m'am, I thought it was your son. You know, the brown haired one, I think that it was third one from your kids when it comes to order…

-What are you talking about? You mean Makoto? Makoto died three years ago when she was still a baby!

-No, I mean- I'm sorry, but-

-And how can you mistake her for Makoto when he had brown hair? She is a blonde! A pure, yellow haired blonde! Any more blonde and I would buy a bread with them!

-I wasn't really talking about him-

-You old witch!

He opened his eyes to look at the source of the ruckus again. It seemed that the aggression of the crowd was growing and at this point he should cut his speech and talk faster. All was well that ended well but fast on a day like this.

-Should I silence them, Kazekage-sama? – said quietly one of his men and he nodded at him with approval. Anything to not make the argument spread. He looked down at two fighting woman – or rather one fighting and other defending herself and he frowned as the sun blinded him, making him see white-

-And when I said her brother died you didn't even say you're sorry, you sick wench-

'The only brother I ever had died when he still was a baby.'

-I said that I'm sorry, what are you talking-

He blinked, feeling how his eyes watered, remembering about Minato. No wonder since he uttered such a useless sentence which probably was some kind of important information of sentimental kind as Minato just never told him about him and maybe he thought that by saying that he changed something – well, he really didn't-

-How can she be resembling you of her brother, she is blonde! Blonde!

-I can see that she is blonde-

-And she has blue eyes, you wench! You're blind, you lie, you-

'...you remind me of my brother.'

He closed his eyes, shaking his head a little. What? Wait, what? Where did that come from? He heard that before, but who-

Minato.

Minato laying just under him, breathing in the silence of the night in the memory that was long forgotten and closed and that didn't really happen because he couldn't just lay in one bed with him, could have never grasp himself to lay on top of him, much less try to kiss him-

'...you remind me of my brother.'

His heart stopped. That must've been a hallucination. A mirage, a ghost of his tired mind, he hadn't slept for nights, his body started playing in games with him again, this didn't happen-

'...you remind me of my brother.' He let go of the water he was holding. It fell on the ground with loud splat and wetted his feet along with his clothes.

He wavered, for a moment losing his straight position. But of it was a hallucination, why did he feel the pain, the rejection, the fear, why did he remember hurrying, why did he remember laying on the other side of the bed-

_This has ended ages ago. You're a horrible liar. I forgot. You just forgot._

He gasped for air, feeling how his jaw hurt with every move he made more and more and how the pressure in his chest grew, wanting to tear him from the inside. Oh my gods!... How could he forget!... It really did happen!... He really, he really… oh my god!...

He swayed.

-Kazekage-sama?

And then… and then… then Minato said that…

'The only brother I ever had died when he still was a baby.'

He coughed, hunching down, falling on his knees, seeing the whiteness of the sun and murderous blue sky and not seeing it at all, remembering only the smiling blond face that looked at him, turned around and left through the gates- He meant… he couldn't have meant!- Oh gods, impossible- The pressure in his chest grew to the impossible size, circling his neck and arms, making him feel strong pain he was not expecting to and he clutched on it, leaning down more and more-

-Kazekage-sama!

Minato!... Minato, you sick, stupid kid!... Why!... Why did you do that to me now!...

He fell down on his face, closing his eyes, not seeing the sun, not seeing his people, not seeing anything– but the blue, blue eyes.

Two hours later the newest release of 'Suna News' went through the hands of every citizen of Suna. And every one of them read it and felt the heaviness that was not caused by the dry heat or blazing sun. Kazekage had a heart attack. No disastrous weather could match that.


	10. Chapter Ten: I see me writting

'Kashi…'

Naruto waited for the jounin to finish paying for his ramen and quickly dropped from the high stool, waving to Ichiraku`s owner and following the silver-haired teen.

'…Kashi, did something bad happen?'

Naruto might be just a child, but he already knew that certain things shouldn't really be spoken outloud, and so, he didn't expand on what was what was worrying him. It was obvious, of course, what he might be talking about.

Naruto didn't know what had happened two days ago, all he knew was that his daddy all of the sudden felt very, very bad. It wasn't anything specific that told him that, as Minato looked and acted as usual, but something had happened on Sunday, because ever since, Naruto felt this underlying current of wrongness coming from the older blond. It felt as if Minato was ready to snap at the smallest provocation.

The grey-haired nin looked at Naruto distractedly, paying with too much money and not even hearing words of the man about the actual price.

'Hm, what are you talking about, Naruto?' he asked absentmindedly, taking him by a hand and going away from the store, actually paying more attention to the snow that lied on the ground last year than the kid. 'Why would something happen? Nothing's happened.'

Actually, something did and he would give his own eye out and sell it on ninja-bay that it somehow connected with Kazekage's heart attack. It was a secretive information and only the small group of the highest known people in council knew about it, but Minato, being Minato, of course, let it slip to him while he was trying to reorganize the scrolls in his office – for no reason and third time this day, by the way. And it seemed he didn't even see he did that as he just kept muttering to himself and holding some old ended pact with the village of Clouds.

More, when Kakashi carefully tried to ask about condition of his friends he got all happy suddenly and tried to ask him why did he think that anyone had heart attack when he didn't even ask about it at all. Beside that the Hokage seemed to be fine and acted just fine when he wasn't fine at all and he knew that and the kid knew that too (nothing ever got away from Naruto's attention). But how was he supposed to tell that to him? He probably wasn't the one to do that at all as he was supposed to not know about it in the first place. So he played along.

'What would you want to do now? Do you want to play with doggie?'

The little blond flinched and looked somewhere to the side. Actually, he did want to play with doggie. He'd been doing so for the past week, along with a funny boy with marks under his eyes, called Kiba. But he couldn't play with him anymore. And he couldn't tell Kashi what his mother had called him, much less his father. Whatever had happened and had Minato so nervous, it probably was much more important than the scary woman in the parka growling at him.

'…dogs are boring.'

Kakashi looked down at the blond. He was about to remind him that his doggies didn't like when someone talked about them like that, but he decided against it. He seemed to be so down since he got back from Suna it wouldn't do him any good to add more stress to that. His father was probably doing that for both of them.

'Let's go home then.'

The grey-haired nin took the kid by his sides and got him up until he sat on his shoulders and was sure that he was sitting properly well. He rarely did such thing and it usually made the kid happy, so maybe this time it will make him forget about the topic and enjoy the ride. And at the least and best point – make him sleepy and make not bother the Hokage about it.

'Do you want me to read you a story at home?'

The boy wasted no time in patting down the funny tuft of hair in his vision.

'No... teach me some new jutsu.'

Kakashi smiled to himself. Maybe this will be good enough to make him happier. Naruto always got so passionate about the new ninja techniques.

'Okay.' He said and turned slightly up to look at the blond 'But we will have to be veeery quiet and not bother your daddy, okay? Or he will get mad at us again.'

Well, no entirely true. More like he will be bothered. And that was not needed in Minato's disturbed state.

'Really?' The blond gave Kakashi a wide smile, hugging himself to his head and nearly strangling him in the process. Kakashi very, very rarely showed him new stuff. 'I love you, Kashi~!'

'That's nothing, Naru- ow, ack! Naru-! Naruto you're strangling me!...' The grey-haired nin took the suffocating hug like a man though and let himself to turn blue until the blond loosened up the hug. And just when he was about to make some laughing remark something caught his eye.

A hawk, light brown, looking more like if he was made of coffee cream instead of actual hard brown surface flied through the air with a top speed and landed on top of the Hokage's tower. But it seemed that nobody really heard him as nobody opened the windows. The bird didn't mind, as it sat on the perch, resting. A messenger. Third this day? What was the council doing? Was it a sign of war going on or something? It would better not be…

'Naruto… maybe tomorrow.' He said, looking closely at the hawk 'It seems that I still have some things to do. You will go to sleep and we will train tomorrow, okay?'

Naruto let out a long, whiny `whaaat?` of protest, but then he provably saw the messenger bird, or maybe just knew it had to be something important, because he just pouted a bit and obligingly climbed down the jounin.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Did no one tell you water boiling takes longer if you stare at it nonstop?'

Minato turned around slowly to stare at the old man, a little angry at himself over the fact he hadn't felt his presence until he was in the same room as him. If that was because the old man was one of the best ninja the village had ever had, or because he was so distracted even genin would probably be able to pull a sneak attack on him, he didn't want to think about. Smiling took a little more effort than usual. Just a little.

'I'm not boiling water, Sarutobi-sensei.'

No, he was doing so many other things. Like… growing an ulcer. Maybe some new white hairs, while he was at it. Yeah, the path of a ninja was all about the new experiences. When Minato had gone through his mail on Monday morning, he had glared at the letter some, as if he could change the contents just by looking menacingly at it- he was sure it was a missive from Daichi making some lame ass excuse and trying to sneak out of coming, in which case Minato was ready to personally go there and kick him all the way through the desert. It took him to read the first word to know something was wrong, considering that was not Daichi's handwriting; in fact, it might just be ninja training, but the handwriting looked positively female. Daichi's head secretary, if he wasn't mistaken.

It took him three times to go over the letter to understand anything beyond `heart attack`, as his eyes tended to trip over the words as if they were a physical thing and go back to the beginning. Sometime by the fifth going-over he managed to make sense of the words in the letter –and by God, what was with Sunanins and writing so fucking much? Weren't they artists? Couldn't they just send him haiku, something like

_Kazekage sama had a heart attack _

_But don't worry _

_He'll be fine in a week_.

It probably had too many moras, though he honestly couldn't tell as he had never particularly cared for poetry, but at least it would have been more to the point than the half a page long letter he had gotten, which only told him the Kazekage had had a heart attack and wouldn't be receiving or doing any sort of business for an indeterminate amount of time. It didn't tell him how bad it had been, if he had regained consciousness already, it didn't tell him if he would be having any permanent problems because of it, if he'd had surgery, and sure, those were things you didn't exactly discuss with opposing villages, but still!

He didn't remember what exactly he wrote on both letters he sent immediately after, only that he had known it would take at least a full day to their fastest messenger bird, and that he didn't know if Suna would bother to answer on the same bird or just wait for their own to recuperate, which meant a way of at least two full days.

Personally, Minato would have just rather give a soldier pill to the bird he had gotten and sent it right back, but birds tended to kind of die when you gave them compressed stimulants and messenger hawks from Suna were hard to train because of their aggressive nature and treasured because of their speed. Killing it would accomplish nothing, besides some vague feelings if poetic justice as the thing had tried to eat one of the fingers of the chuunin that was in charge of feeding it while he waited for an answer.

Once the bird flew out, the old man closed the windows and turned to the blond with a warm smile on his lips.

'You look tired, Minato.' he said, puffing the smoke from his pipe and slowly moving out of the room 'To hear that Kazekage had heart attack at such young age, that really is something… not all are predestined to become good leaders even when they have tendencies to seem like right people on right places… please, make us some lemon balm tea. It sure will do us good on this humid day…'

And he went out of the room, laughing heartily. Kids…

Six hours later the hawk got to the Suna.

It wouldn't be anything spectacular as it was a strong bird and used to traveling so far in such short periods of time. The problem was, that instead of going to the council, it flew right away to the old house of elders, who rarely had any correspondence with anyone.

'Sister? Sister!' said Ebizo, slowly moving with the bird that seemed to be particularly hungry for his fingers, but he didn't mind. Such birds were rarely fed and were looking for any treat once they had occasion to land. He fed it with the small fish from his latest catch. It ate it with visible happiness, closing the eyes with delight. He read the plate from his neck. Saguaro. Nice.

'Sister!... There's mail for you!...'

Chiyo, like usual, didn't move at all. It took him three times to ask her if she died, and when he started to worry that maybe she really did die this time, she laughed at him with the usual 'I was joking!' stance.

'Please, don't scare me like that!...' he said, giving her both envelopes, even if one wasn't addressed to her. But it seemed that the hawk had no intentions of going anywhere else. Speaking of which, it seemed to be fond of his catch a little too much and fed itself on third fish already.

'Shoo! Shoo! Stop that, Saguaro! It's not yours!'

The bird didn't do anything beside feeding itself on the rest of treats it found and it squawked angrily at the man, puffing out with its feathers and beating with wings once the man wanted to get closer and take it away from him. Founders, keepers as he was seeming to say. Chiyo laughed.

'Ho ho ho, good for him, good for him!' she cheered for a bird and looked at the envelopes. One for her, one for that Kazekage brat. With Konoha's seals. What would Konoha want from her? Daichi's secretary was supposed to take care of all his mail in the current state he was in. Would it be good to hand him over such letter? Stress was not well seen in that moment… She opened the green envelope and read the letter.

It all came to 'I know you are a militaristic old witch with crazy anti-inter-village-friendship politics, but please, just this once, tell me if Daichi really is ok.'. Only in more polite, diplomatesque (as she abstained from calling such a poor attempt at hiding emotions 'diplomacy') way. She laughed and went to the unused drawer where she held all kinds of wood, also in thin, clear papered shape.

'No.' she simply wrote at the top of the page 'He is in critical condition and he is dying. He probably will get one week of life at the most and is in the middle of writing the last will now. I would write more, but the ink is endi…' Then she took out a brown envelope, sealed the information and went to the Kazekage's mansion.

If the blond really wanted anything from her, he could sit and wait there all in nerves. She didn't suspect that this friendship from young years would last for so long. And if the Konohan brat had any dignity in himself, he wouldn't go into hysterics just after that and provide some more fun to her calm, fishy life.

Daichi lied in his own room in silence. His heart kept on beating steadily, making the green dots on the wooden screen get tapped just in the rhythm of his chakra getting through it and soothed his nerves. At the beginning it did anything but flame them, but after some time his senses just dulled and he kept on laying, eating sleeping pills and strange meds and dreaming dreamless dreams that didn't give him any rest, in contrary of doctor's belief. It was good that at least kids didn't bother him anymore.

They kept on getting in and bothering him with questions like 'will you die?' and 'what's happened?' and 'why did your heart stop?' and so on. Kankuro and Temari he meant. Gaara just kept sitting under his door and peaking inside every time someone opened them, making the sand rustle and move to his side where it watched the machinery and him with big golden eyes and toothy grin. Which seemed to be void of aggression and it was more a smile of someone who was happy for no reason, which looked vaguely stupid. He shooed it after some time, not having strength for that. Yashamaru came to change his bandages on hands, snickering at him and saying something about 'serving him right' as he was not delicate at all and made his hands hurt a little too much and forgot to fill his glass with water.

Good that this old granny from elders' house checked on him from time to time or he would probably lay there suffering twice as hard for being at mercy of everyone. Like if he was not suffering from trying to not think about cause of everything at all. He was just lulling off into another portion of restless sleeping when the door banged open and a lively old woman stepped inside, laughing at Yashamaru who seemed to be in tired hysteric trying to keep her away – only not that much and not that hard. She closed the door on his (and Gaara's ) nose.

'Don't try to tell me what to do, brat, I lived through your birth and had my diplomas then and I know very well what's good for such a stupid man as Daichi himself!' she said and turned to him, chuckling nicely. 'Love letter from a silent watcher!' she said and tossed him a green envelope with Konoha's seals. The sounder started tapping quicker. She looked at him, laughing that she was only joking, but it didn't cease the tempo of the beating of his fatigued heart. It hurt as the wounds on it didn't heal yet but he couldn't stop getting more and more excited as he took out the letter from envelope and saw the known handwriting. Minato!... A letter from Minato!...

He really didn't think about anything from before as he knew it wouldn't do anything good to his condition, but now it all flooded his memory like a river full of memories and made his hands tremble. Minato… Minato wrote him a letter and!...

…he barely could see what was written there. Curse the meds. He tried, he really tried, but he only saw some kind of mockery that sounded like if the blond wrote it with a gun near his head and it didn't provide any interesting information whatsoever. He gave up half-way through and let his head fall back on the pillows. The stupid pills were taking its toll on him again.

'Could you… could you give me a paper?...' he asked, pointing at his desk.

Chiyo gladly took out the two kinds of pretty crafted paper, done only for such occasions as weddings and burials. He chose the one for burials. More decorative. He took out one of his most beautiful pens that lied next to his bed as he never used them and opened the lid, writing in plain, straight capital letters.

'_FUCK YOU.' _

He looked at it, feeling more and more dizzy. The machine tapped in calm, steady rhythm. He laid his hand on the paper one more time.

'_P.S.'_ he added, his hand less steady now, trembling a little and making the letters look like if they were made by someone who was sitting in a very old, quickly moving train _'You can laugh now all you want, Baki will be more than happy to accompany you with sealing scroll. Go die, Fourth Kazekage.'_

Then he sealed it in the envelope and lied dead on the pillow. A few seconds later elder Chiyo quitted the room and he was again in the state of dream made of tasteless cotton wool.

The main bird from his post office was sent three minutes later.

The first hawk that had been sent to Konoha arrived on the following day, containing '_You are a horrible, tiny, old, old woman. Ps: Kazekage-sama will be attending a meeting here in two months. Konoha would be delighted to have you accompany him.'_

Which really made the old woman happy, so she cheered for the new bird twice as hard when it ate Ebizo's fishes and responded with glee and joy: _'And you're a funny, funny brat who haven't changed at all. Kazekage-sama had got a bad crisis, for some reason he overdosed caffeine and overworked himself so hard his heart just had to collapse through one way or another. He is young and has strong body so this shouldn't take him long to recover. However I would recommend to abstain from any wild activities for some time now. _

_P.S. I will show up only if there will be a sugared cake for my honor. That old gramps of yours promised me one for my eightieth birthday and failed to deliver the ice freezing five times already._ _P.S. 2 And if there won't I will show up and take it anyway, ho ho ho!_

This time bird flew faster as it was filled up with fishes to the tilt of its neck and the weather got a little less sunny.

The bird that returned was from Konoha, and still had no letters addressed to the Kazekage, just his grandmother.

'_I will do the cake myself, Chiyo-sama. We will expect you in 9 weeks. _

_Ps: If it tastes like almonds, it's just my way of appreciating practical jokes. You aren't allergic to cyanide or anything, right?_

_Ps2: Make sure Kazekage-sama comes, it's important._ '

Kazekage frowned at the fact as every time the elder got the letter she came to him to inform him about that unusual fact she got letters. He looked at the calendar as the day seemed to get closer and closer.

'Please, allow me.' he said, taking the pen from her hand and borrowing the rest of paper she left empty for nothing. After a moment it wrote:

'_Ho ho ho, I eat cyanide once in awhile, it really doesn't help the taste though and you w__ill need something stronger than that to defeat the old woman like me. But almonds will suffice. Kazekage-sama is a brat who says he has no intention of going anywhere which means he will, so don__'t worry about it. Old woman to young brat.' _

'_P.S. __You'd better pray I won't come or you will soon have a very similar heart attack to mine and believe me, that's not a nice experience. The most important brat in the whole country.' _

Then he let go of the pencil, leaving the old woman laughing her three letters off and called for his closest guards. After a second, Baki entered the room.

'Nice to see you.' he said and smiled at the nin. 'There are some changes in the schedule of your trip. Please, listen to them carefully…'

The nin bowed down. The redhead listened with a frown. What was going on? He didn't understand. But Chiyo-gran was laughing like always so it was probably nothing very bad…

The reply from Konoha didn`t let itself wait.

'_I'll make sure to ask the Inuzuka`s to prepare their biggest dog house for your arrival. I want you to feel as comfortable and at home as possible during your stay, keeping in mind your delicate state. _

_Ps to the old lady: Your grandson still can't hold his alcohol. It is in his best interest to confiscate the liquor on his cabinet, especially the sweet green one. Jiraiya-sensei will appreciate it. Really, you can't let him embarrass himself like that. He sung, you know? You should ask him to it sometime for you~ ps__2: It`s winter here, dress appropriately.'_

'You actually drank the alcohol I gave you for the wedding?' she asked Daichi outloud. The man looked at her like if she was threatening him with a knife. The old lady laughed 'You really should sing some to me, I didn't know you could…'

'I can't and I don't know what are you talking about.' said the man, turning around to make another round of sits and downs. The basic first grader gymnastic seemed to be important from doctor's side and he did it appropriately even if at first it sounded funny for a Kazekage to revert to such activity.

'I'm talking about the warm clothes.' said the old woman and started scribbling on the paper again 'It's winter in Konoha. Do you remember winter at all, Daichi? We should wear a lot of warm clothes… and maybe drink some liquor before going, that will keep us warm enough and loosened up…'

'I CAN hold my alcohol, thank you.' he answered hastily. The gran smiled at him.

'Not that you can do it now.' she answered and sealed the envelope. Soon, she quit the room. Daichi looked after her, seeing how the red haired kid gazed at him from behind the door and followed her to open the door and look at him from above. Gaara shrank, but didn't move away.

'Prepare for a journey, Gaara.' he spoke 'Pack all warm things you have. We're going to Konoha.'

The kid nodded, but still didn't move away from the door, fidgeting a little. He frowned.

'What is it? If you don't know what to pack, ask Yashamaru.'

The kid shook his head, hugging his plush a little tighter. He stood there, waiting. Finally, the kid looked up at him shyly, probably shunned by the hard glare he sent him and made little hurt expression.

'Are you…' he asked in tiny voice 'Are you all right, father?...'

He slammed the door shut. It was the last thing to do in that point of his life. Answering stupid questions from a heartless animal. He resumed his gymnastics. One. Two. Three. Four. He looked into the mirror. What the hell was he doing!... Or rather – what was he NOT doing.

He looked at the calendar. Still two days before the actual leaving. Then three days of traveling. He was going there to hand over the scroll and…

…and…

He smeared down his face from the sweat and closed his eyes. His heart beat faster, but it didn't hurt now at all. If not now, then when was the right time to think about it? Obviously not near his son and obviously not in the Konoha where it would be too late for everything. He looked at the clock. Eight p.m. fairly well and too early for his night time. He went out on the balcony and looked at the sky. If he were to search for a starfish in that sky blue sea, he'd probably get a palm of each just by getting them in. He hunched down the balustrade to look at the people outside.

They were all there, ants in the sands, Chiyo among them, scribbling the letter on a run as a snow white hawk was sitting on her arm. Then he turned around to face the door of his home. Was he really ready for that?

No he wasn't. The past was closed and forgotten and even cursed. He needed eternity and now he has only a few days. He was by no means ready. But he had to be. He came into the room and looked at the box of blue pills for dreamless sleeping. Then, with one swift move he tossed it to the bin.

'There I go.' he said, sitting on the verge of the bed, seeing how still early it was and wondering if anyone wouldn't freak out at him for being in bed in such hour. He breathed in and out. His heart didn't hurt him. He lied in bed and closed his eyes.

The dream didn't come. Not that he really wanted for it to come, feeling still a little wary and insecure. He listened to the steady heartbeat in his ears and tossed to the side. It really would be no good if anyone would find him in such state… they'd think he got more sick maybe… who knew what that old gran wrote in the letter?... Hopefully nothing too embarrassing. Like about the fact he liked singing when he was little. He wouldn't be able to live that down. Ever. He breathed in and out. But if he wouldn't be able to live such a simple thing down then would he be able to get through the whole… thing… with Minato?...

They were not kids anymore. They hadn't got future before them, their future has already happened. They ended the academy, married women and had kids. Then they lost their wives due their tragic choices and led a life of heads of villages. It was far too far, far too old, far too impossible. He forgot about everything once Minato left him at bachelor's party in the middle of the night – he drank until he forgot and didn't remember anything anymore. He drank until he fainted and was found under the table, the earliest from all guests. He forgot the past, the academy, the touches, the glances. He only remembered there was an ache and a hole which longed to be fulfilled, but there was nobody to do that. Karura couldn't. Temari couldn't. Kankuro couldn't. And definitely Gaara couldn't.

And now, by a simple sentence, Minato threw the vertigo on him again and it was done half by himself too. Because by coming to him Minato woke up the longing in him and by this longing he banged on ever closed doors in his mind until they all flew open. And then he regretted, but what was once remembered couldn't be tucked back into the river of Lete so easily. By one simple sentence all his regret was meaningless and all his pain was getting twice, thrice bigger – Minato didn't have a reason, Minato had a need. And he was not fitting his need then.

For half of his life he was not and he learned to not fit it and now suddenly, when the wound was dried up, sunk in salt that wind managed to move out and in sand that started to drown it in the forgotteness, Minato suddenly showed up and said 'Let it bleed again' and it bled and hurt and he could only watch it happen and nod to it as his denial only lead him closer to death. Pathetic. That probably what Kushina would say. It was pathetic.

_-Do you really think so? _

-I know so.

She laughed again, pearly crescendo of bells in her voice. She closed the distance between them and lied in a bed, closing to his ear and smiling.

_-Who knows, I may never tell_ – she said _– But Karura wouldn't be happy about that_.

-Was she ever happy?

_-No, I don't think so. _

And it was not Kushina anymore, it was Yashamaru, just in the same position, in the same stance. He felt the cold fingers through his skin even if he knew that he had healthy dreams and was not torturing his body anymore. If anything, he was letting go. Letting go…

_-I never wanted her to marry you. I knew you won't love her, I knew. I warned her… but she didn't listen. The worst of all it was that I was alone against her and parents. Who wouldn't want such a pretty petty shiny boy like you? Everyone would and such a freak like me could blah, I was just jealous of you-_

-Forgive me, Yashamaru.

_-I will never forgive myself. But don't ask me for that, ask her._

The body lightened, sweetened, the room started smelling like sweet peas and sandalwood, nice, fresh, white.

_-You're dirty, Daichi, and I curse you for the love you never gave me and the hate you always fed me. You didn't have to do that to me. I was jealous, but I was not an obstacle, Daichi_.

-I'm sorry.

_-No, you're not. I will never allow you what you want to do. I hope you will burn in hell and that I can meet you there. Then I will laugh at you long and hard._

-No, Karura. Just rest in peace. Let me be happy.

_-Burn and suffer, Daichi. Burn and suffer like I did. _

He sighed. The bed was empty.

-I don't really deserve that.

_-Of course you don't. __He is my husband and always will be, no matter what would you want._

-I don't want that.

_-Of course you don't. You just like to suffer, that's why you long after what's unreachable. Once you will fulfill your needs you will regret doing that._

-I don't love him.

_-Don't you? _

He shivered as another person showed up and he didn't really have to look around to know who was it as he felt the heat that was not biting (unlike Kushina's) not burning (like Karura's) or chilling (like Yashamaru's). It was Minato, Minato himself and he held him like they did and the others were gone. He closed his eyes and shivered.

_-You remind me of a brother I never had, Daichi. You resemble so much of someone who never really was there…_

-Why did you say that?

A smile. He felt it through his skin. He didn't ask further. He was not denying himself anything anymore, he had no reason to do that. He could not run away from his longings anymore. He was from past fifteen years. Half of his life.

-Are you Minato?...

_-Yes, I am._

-Can you hold me?

_-I am holding you, Daichi._

-Can you kiss me?

He felt the warm mouth at the back side of his skull. He closed his eyes and trembled. He felt warm… _-I am kissing you, Daichi._

He breathed. In and out.

-Can you love me?

_-Who knows, Daichi…_

He opened his eyes and turned to the side, looking at the smiling blue eyes and nice pearly teeth.

-You can, can't you?... – he asked, feeling all giddy inside, almost like if he was in primary school and not a thirty years old man – You can love me, Minato…

_-Can you love me, Daichi? _

He looked at him. Then he turned to him and held onto him, even if he didn't spoke a word. Could he love him? Could HE love him? Could he LOVE him? HIM?

-Please, love me – he muttered in trembling voice – Please, Minato, love me…

Minato didn't move, looking at him with gentle stare.

-Please!... – he begged and clawed at the clothes that should've tear and the skin that should've bleed. And yet, it didn't. Minato smiled at him.

_-I'm loving you, Daichi_.

And when he finally let go, finally let himself feel the happiness of being and holding onto what he wanted, when he was just too warm and too tangled and too mixed in and too clawed at… Kushina stood at the head end of the bed.

_-What are you doing, Daichi? That's my husband. Have you got no shame? Damn you!_

Karura stood at the other side of the bed.

_-I never allowed that and I never will. Curse you both, Daichi, I hope you will suffer._

Yashamaru stood at the foot end of the bed.

_-I hope you die, I hope you rot, I hope you get your arms cut off, I hope you burn, I hope you fall, I hope you won't see anything at all…_

He gasped, trying to get out of the bed, feeling it was just not all right to be there, to do that to feel that, pushed at the man wanting to untangle them both and he was held by an arm. Minato smiled at him with this gentle, lovely smile.

'_I was joking, Daichi. My brother lives. And he looks just like you.'_

He woke up with a gasp.

And then he recognized he was alone. Three a.m. on the clock. The same old date on the calendar. Somehow, he knew it was a dream all along. And yet, it didn't make it any more better. He fell from bed, hurrying from it to the bin, fishing the blue pills from it and opening the lid. Blue pills spread on the whole floor, getting stained in dirt and sand. He couldn't eat them like that. He felt like crying. He wasn't ready… he wasn't ready!...

How could he go to Konoha when he wasn't ready!...

'I… I can't…' he muttered, hiding his eyes in his hand and lightly swinging himself for a moment or two 'I… He couldn't do this! Not like that!'

'Baki' he rasped, then looked away from the floor to the door. He stood up. He had to get the jounin. Now. 'Baki!'

A few minutes later the jounin stood in his room ready for fight. He looked at him with bleached eyes.

'I have new orders for you. It's a complete secret and you will do as told, understood?'

The jounin nodded. After a moment, everything was settled up.

At the same time, the messenger bird was reaching Konoha.

'_Don't worry about that, boy. We will accept that place as we know that Konoha is so poor you cannot afford anything better for a couple of jounins. I took a liquor from him, but he probably has some more of it hidden in secretive places like he usually does. If he didn't, he wouldn't let me take it. You know him, or at least you should (in which I sincerely doubt). P.S. We will be there by the morning of the day after tomorrow. Better keep my cake ready in__ those fridges of yours, brats!'_

Once reassured that Daichi wasn't going to die just to think of a cleaver way to run out of things he didn't want to face, Minato felt free to do what he did best. And that was to work. Primarily on his Hokage duties, as he couldn't afford to everything would need to be planned out to the smallest detail to work. By the time the fox attacked, there hadn't been much time to think or plan ahead. He had put together a seal out of what felt right at the moment, had activated it at a time where his chakra was near exhausted, he had been having an emotional breakdown and the chosen vessel had been dying.

Against all odds, it had worked. But he couldn't risk doing such a thing again, because the lives of people important to him were at risk, including his own son. As far as he saw it, the success of the mission depended mainly on him making up an effective seal; Daichi having enough chakra to control it and convince Sarutobi-sensei to help them with a cover. Secondarily, it depended on his ability to talk both his sensei and the crazy old woman into helping, with the latter being the hardest; as squeezing information out of Chiyo-baasan was like squeezing water out of a rock, especially when it concerned the secrets of her village.

Minato knew at least he could trust all of these people, but there was also the fact he would be needing help from the Hyuuga, and he wasn't sure whether he could trust them. The current head, Hyuuga Hiashi was indebted to him for interfering on the negotiations between Kumogakure and the clan and saving his brother's life, but they still were a pretty proud family and always wanted to meddle on Konoha affairs a little too often, because they felt being one of the founding families gave them such rights. Not to mention - he was working on assumptions. The sealing method was probably not only different in Wind country, but it had been born on an unborn child, which changed everything as the tailed beast was not only now sealed inside Gaara but incorporated to his being. That's why he need the Hyuuga. Basically, all that he was working on might be rendered useless the moment he read the scroll, but he needed to work anyway, as whatever he did now had a strong chance of proving itself useful. And God, he needed the work. There were too many hours in a single day, and if he so much left one free, he'd have to think about thing he'd rather not needed the Hyuuga

He worked and waited. Priorities had to be set after all. First they would see what could be done about Gaara, and then…

The following day in Suna was the grand day of packing. The great Kazekage of Suna was moving on a journey to a town that lied three days far. It was the first trip after Kazekage's heart attack and everyone were excited. The usual calm village buzzed like in swamp. The usual silent mansion of Sabakus resembled of kid's playground.

'There! Move it there!' shouted Baki, commanding with packs of luggage and moving camels, ninjas at service and ANBUs 'Quicker! Faster! Slow that down!'

Kids ran through the building not restrained by anyone, packed already by themselves and helping hand of their uncle. Gaara sat on the roof and observed everything from up above. Daichi lied in bed. Not because he was tired. Not because he was sick. He just ate half of blue pill every hour, enough to throw him into dreamless buzz, but not enough to make him sleep. His state resembled a mindless sitting underwater where he didn't care about anything at all.

'I so envy you that you go to Konoha, Kazekage-sama!' babbled Yashamaru, packing his clothes, one by one, every one of them and not all of them at all 'I was there only once, I was five, I wish I could go, but I'm happy that you can go…'

'…because I won't have to see your face…' muttered Daichi. Yashamaru looked at him.

'Excuse me?' he said, politely interested. What Daichi said in this strange state could not be understandable at all. Daichi didn't even flinch. 'Anyway, when I was in Konoha they had fall then, it looked really pretty…'

Daichi heard it and didn't hear it at all, not understanding, not listening. He just existed. Through one more day. The seal lied on the floor, taken out, mingled along with other seals, looking exactly the same as them, and yet, he couldn't mistake it with anything else. His hand hurt like if they were in fire nonstop, the spicy feeling of being burned and chilled still tingling on them. But faint. Dull. Nonexistent.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow it will start.


	11. Chapter Eleven: Been through the desert

'Are you going to tell me what you are planning to do?'

'No.'

The white-haired man gritted his pipe between his teeth and went back to writing the report, muttering under his breath about disrespectful, sneaky brats with evil plans. Not only did he have to stay in the village until the Hokage told him he was free to leave once again, but he also had to go through the scrolls Minato had brought from Suna and make new ones with what he had found on his travels so they could share the information.

Minato ignored his obviously irritated sensei in favor of working on the frosting for the cake, following the recipe closely. He was the kind of people who almost never cooked, yet were perfectly capable of doing so wonderfully as long as they kept a set of instructions at hand. He was just missing the top decorations when Jiraiya finally had enough and tossed the scrolls away, turning to his student fully.

'…are you going to tell me or not?'

'Not.'

'Why not?'

'Because.'

The older man glared at the blond.

'You have that face again, and I don't like it.'

That made the blond pause on what he was doing, and turn to his teacher with a curious smile.

'Oh?'

'That face.' The older man said, walking to the smaller male. 'That `Oh sensei, I did something, something you won't like, and you know what else? You are going to find out very, very soon`.'

Minato stopped whisking the cream in favor of staring at the older male with frank awe. Wow. And he thought only parents with small children could decode that kind of expressions. Wait, had he been doing that kind of face…? That was worrying…

'Minato. What's happened in Suna?'

Minato shrugged and went back to what he was doing, ignoring his teacher. What had happened in Suna didn't matter anymore, only what would happen here.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The next day was a mediocre day. Which meant it was fairly good for travelling as nice day would made the people angry that they had to leave(every nice day meant a good day for taking care of homeland's plantations and nobody wanted to miss those as there were so few on the way) and bad – even more unhappy for that it would be a bad for travelling. Mediocre was the most favored day.

The ANBUs and the serving ninjas slowly gathered in front of Kazekage's mansion at the dawn. A few blinking stars still shone on the sky as the sun tried to peak out from the horizon, Venus being the brightest of them. Yashamaru slowly took out sleepy Kankuro and nervous Temari out. Gaara was long seated in the coach which was guarded by chakra restrainers and two ANBU leaders – one on the top and one on the camel before them. Yashamaru sighed. He really, really would love to go to Konoha in something like that. Last time he went there it was a travel by foot, so he and his sister were dead tired once they reached the gates. But then it meant a few days all to himself with tons of liquid vodka and lack of memories at all – and that was all he really needed. To forget.

He pushed the kids to the other coach and waved to them. The sun slowly shone out of the horizon. Everyone stood in silence.

'Where is Kazekage-sama?' someone asked quietly, then the question got murmured through all lines. People started looking at themselves.

'Maybe I should go check…' offered one of the ANBU. The other ANBU nodded.

'Nobody is going anywhere without my permission!' The whip slashed the sand and two camels looked around lividly, freezing in fear. Usually they were not afraid of whips, but such a strong slash could hurt the skin even if it was just as thick as theirs. They felt it, so instinctively – they feared it.

In the front of the line, the only one horse in the whole convoy stepped out, holding a proudly sitting ninja on top of it. It was Baki.

'Oh? And why is that?' said the elder Chiyo, looking out from her own camel, and propping her hands on her hips 'I don't have to listen to anyone, I can go whenever I want! And nor has the rest of us, many of us is higher in rank than you!'

'I have new orders from Kazekage-sama!' said the jounin and showed the permission paper 'We won't all go together to Konoha!'

'Eh? What?'

'How so?'

'And he didn't tell us before?'

'Why? What's happened?'

'What do you mean, Baki-sama?' asked one of the lower ranked jounins. Baki nodded.

'By the new orders, Kazekage-sama demands half of the convoy to depart just as scheduled. This convoy will be lead by me, as I was the one to take them from him and will handle the jinchuuriki with us. And yes, with you, elder Chiyo.' He nodded toward the woman. The gran frowned at him. 'Second convoy will leave at the midday, after the worst heat and will travel through the same path and the same schedule, only hours later. This convoy will contain Kazekage-sama's children. It also will be joined by Kazekage-sama himself, as Kazekage-sama is still not feeling well and wants to miss the first worst heat on the way to Konoha. Those are new orders. Dismissed!'

'Oh yeah?' said the Elder Chiyo and instantly hopped off from her camel 'If that's how it is and he just orders people to travel like that because he doesn't feel well then I can stay with him too. Such travels are bad for my old bones!' she said and stomped away to the building, standing near Yashamaru, who looked fairly astonished. Baki frowned a little in silence, but nodded to her and turned the horse.

'Everyone, count the people! Cut at the half! We move out after five minutes!'

Ninjas regrouped. One of the highest schooled ANBUs joined the coach in which Gaara sat in to fill the missing place in defense. Convoys moved.

'Baki?' asked the redhead, looking out from the window 'Where's father?'

'He will be joining us after short while.' said the jounin and moved away to secure the back parts. Gaara frowned and sat down with pouty face. Mother didn't like that. Mother felt vaguely insecure lately and was against all that. Maybe he should've run?

'Not yet, not yet…' murmured the voice in his head. So Gaara sat and did nothing. Suna moved. Chiyo watched it with her old eyes and frowned more and more. People that stayed looked at both of them, not knowing if to hide or to wait on the sun that would sun flash the place. She nodded at them, letting them scatter and looking at Yashamaru. He looked a little mixed about everything.

'You stay here. I will talk with our famous sickie.' She said, winking at him, but he didn't seem to catch the joke. As the story was told – Yashamaru was not in nice terms with kazekage at all. She moved inside. And as she suspected, she met him in his office, sitting behind his desk, in his traveling clothes, looking through the window at the moving people.

'Hello there.' she said, entering the room as usual 'You don't seem to feel bad. Care to tell the old gran what are you doing?'

'I have nothing to tell you.' said the man to her, not even showing her his face. He didn't have to, it all showed nothing after all. 'Please, get out of my office.'

'But you will be joining this convoy I'm going to go with later?' she said, though it was pretty much a statement than a question 'Because if you won't, I'm going to drag you there. I'm not gonna miss the possibility to eat the almond cake done by Hokage himself because you suddenly decided to feel bratty.'

Daichi didn't even flinch.

'I will. Of course I will.' he said, turning slowly to her but not even changing his position. His face was pale like if he was about to die, but still, void of any emotions 'Please, get out.'

'Sure. Just keep your promise.'

'Get out.'

So she did.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'I feel weird.' That Naruto announced his current state of feelings so openly wasn't rare at all, as he was almost exceedingly open at how he felt… Well, at least to his friends. When you were five, it was important to have people you could tell everything to. And when you were Namikaze Naruto, those two people were Hyuuga Neji and Hyuuga Hinata.

He had met the both of them a little over a year ago, when his father had taken him to the Hyuuga compound. Normally Minato would have left him at home under Kakashi care, as he usually did when important matters called him away, but that hadn't been possible and the Hokage had had a sudden paternal crisis and was completely unwilling to have Naruto further away than a couple feet. Because only three days ago, someone had attempted to kidnap the heiress from Hyuuga, a tiny girl that was Naruto's age, and now that idea of kidnapping and assassination was fresh on Minato's mind, it would take more than just a few days to depart.

Not that Naruto could complain; he barely got to leave their house as it was. Any change of scenery was more than welcome. He didn't really know what was so important about what had happened in this place full of odd, white-eyed people, only that his dad wasn't happy about it. The only thing left to ponder was who was Minato angry at, if the white-eyed people or the dark-skinned people that had arrived to Konoha just a day before.

Either way, it wasn't normal for the Hokage to get angry at anything, much less show it, and his son had been feeling a little worried about everything, and decided to get as far away from the room as he could and just start to explore the endless labyrinth that seemed to be the manor he was in. He had just left the bathroom, rubbing his freshly washed hands on his pants to dry them faster and trying to remember if he had come right or left, when he suddenly caught sight of something colorful out of the corner of his eyes. He turned around in that direction, briefly catching sight of a pale, pale face and dark clothes and hair, and then the figure was gone, leaving him gaping at it for a moment. A ghost?

He vaguely remembered a story perverted sage had told him regarding ghost once. Something about giving them what they wanted and they would give you some special type of reward afterwards. It probably was some really cool jutsu, because as soon a she had gotten to that part, daddy had appeared and told him that story was not for children and that if he caught telling that kind of thing to Naruto before he was eighteen, he would do things to him that would make him unable to enjoy researching material anymore. That was pretty mean of his dad. Perverted sage really took his writing seriously and was always looking for new researching material.

Either way, it had taken him a moment of hesitance to break into a run after the little ghost, following the barely registered scurrying sounds it made and catching sight only of its back every now and then, until he finally left the hallways and came to a larger area of the house, with actual sunlight streaming through the large panels. Outside, there was a large garden filled with different kinds of flowers and plants, beautifully arranged and obviously well taken care of.

'Wow…'

He slowly made his way to the open doors, and if he didn`t see the long-haired child next to the birdcage, it was because he was so still he didn`t register him.

Neji didn't move. Not because he didn't see or recognize Naruto – it was because he was not expecting to be interrupted during his routine feeding. His birds needed this and it was a private moment between him and them. It was normal if he wanted to train with them later. They were supposed to be obedient and ready to die by his hand at any moment and you didn't get that by simple feeding. You had to get close to every bird. That's why Neji took care of seven birds from the very beginning till then. Two died in the process because of jealousy – they had a little nicer feathers than everyone else. Nobody from outside the Hyuuga mansion detected the difference – Hyuugas did. And he was also used to watching all of them closely. They already had their traits and sides of a character.

The boy didn't move at first, then he hid himself in the shadow, looking at him through his silently activated white eyes. A human, nonetheless. And a small one. Intruder? He didn't think so… but who might that be? He didn't know. But one was never safe in such place as Konoha, especially after that accident from days ago. He prepared his stance just as father taught him and quietly observed the boy.

The blond stilled and looked around with a confused expression, but apparently didn't catch sight of the older boy, though his eyes were drawn to the colorful creatures inside the cage. He stared for a moment at the bright yellow and orange birds on the cage, his eyes closing in a strangely foxy expression as a wide smile appeared on his face.

Neji stared at him from the hiding, observing in silence. The creature didn't seem to be very harmful, it didn't look like something that could do something bad. He even smiled nicely and…

'Hiii~' he cooed softly, slowly approaching the cage and tapping on the lower side gently a few times. 'Hi birdies. Have you seen the little ghost?'

'What are you doing?' Instantly, forgetting his protective position, Neji leapt out from the shadow, rushing toward the boy. His birdies! His little birdies were in danger! Who knew what could he do to them? He couldn't let them be harmed!

He almost immediately caught the cage and took with himself, pushing the boy lightly away.

'Don't touch my birds!' he shouted. Birds in the cage fluttered around in panic at the sudden movement 'Who are you? What are your intentions? I will defeat you if I have to!'

The blond had let out a strange, high-pitched noise of alarm-then covered his own mouth, staring at the long-haired boy from his spot on the floor.

The other boy stared back, his pale cheeks flushed and his eyebrows frowned. His chest moved rapidly at the unexpected reaction. That wasn't like enemy at all. He almost looked like if he was the one who was attacked. 'Who are you?' he asked again, this time in a calmer and slower pace. But he still didn't let go of the birds.

'Naruto…' the boy said, looking around for a moment, then getting up, dusting the seat of his black shorts lightly.

'I don't know you.' said the boy and slowly, slowly let go of the cage to resume the defensive stance. 'Why are you here? It's Hyuuga's mansion. You're not from Hyuuga's family!'

How did this boy get there? It was the centre of the house, nobody should be able to get there!...

'My daddy brought me.' he said, still staring at the older brunette with wide, curious eyes, as if he had never seen another child his eye. In his case, it was partially true. 'I followed the little ghost.'

'Ghost?' said Neji and frowned, a little loosening from the stance 'There's no ghosts in Hyuuga's mansion…'

He blinked, looking around. There wasn't for sure. If there was, his daddy would tell him about it. Right? He would… he should… He blinked, hearing something move around and almost gasped, but he held himself still. He looked back at the blond and shook his head. What a stupidity!

He resumed his defensive stance.

'Why are you lying to me? Who is your daddy? My daddy is a very known person! You can't be bad to me, or he will be angry at your daddy and he might make him feel bad!'

'I'm not lying!' the boy said, finally reacting in his usual bold manner. 'My daddy brought me here and he's in the big room with the people with white eyes and the people from cloud!'

'That's not true! In that room there's only my family, people from Cloud country and Hokage-sama!' said Neji and lost his stance to just fist his palms and point them at Naruto. 'Liar! A liar, that's what you are and there's no daddy here! You came here to steal and I caught you on stealing from us! I will tell everything to daddy!'

'I'm not a liar!' the blond said, blue eyes narrowed down in anger 'My daddy is the Hokage!'

'Another lie! Prove it!'

Naruto stared. Then stared some more. Finally he threw back his head and bellowed.

'KAAASHII~!'

The white eyed boy looked at him with fear as he threw out such a tantrum and stepped back just to be safe. Two seconds later, to his own place came another intruder – and this time he was much bigger than the blond boy. But he looked vaguely familiar, unlike the boy. The young Hyuuga frowned.

'Wait… I know you!' he said, pointing his fingers at him 'You're Hatake Kakashi!'

'Yes, and I'd rather know what's going on here.' he said, crouching near Naruto and looking at him with slightly panicked stare 'What's happened, Naruto? Are you hurt?'

'No.' the blond said, throwing himself to the teens chest and looking as if it were the most natural thing in the world to give hear attacks to fifteen year old jounin. 'Kashi, tell him that daddy is the Hokage, he doesn't believe it.'

Kakashi blinked, not understanding the situation. Slowly he moved his head from the young Hyuuga boy then back – to the blond.

'Um.' He said, coughing, seeing that the other boy didn't seem to be fazed and waited for him to say something. 'It's true, Hokage-sama is a father of Naruto.'

The other boy's eyes widened, then he moved one more step back, looking defeated. Then he looked at the blond and pointed his finger at him.

'His daddy might be a Hokage but he still lies. There's no ghosts in Hyuuga's mansion!'

'Oh, really?' said Kakashi and smiled. Then he moved foot slightly, activating the little shuriken trap he made outside for practicing. Two of the shurikens tapped on the wood, but the inexperienced byakugan couldn't see that yet 'Who knows, maybe yes, maybe no…' he murmured and smiled. 'Why don't you just say hello to each other and play instead of acting with such hostility. This is a big honor to play with Hokage-sama's son….'

The boy flinched. Kakashi smiled wider. There. All Hyuugas were crazy about two things – honor and destiny. It seemed that even this little boy wasn't immune to the words. He leaned closer.

'And you know what…' he whispered 'I think it was destined for you two to meet, because I always wanted to study ghosts and my horoscope told me that today will be the perfect day for that – and I'm here and you two can help me with that.' he said and winked at Neji. Checkmate. The boy all trembled from excitement. He came closer and bowed deeply before the boy.

'I'm sorry for my inconvomenanance' he said with a very serious face 'I'm Hyuuga Neji, the youngest Hyuuga besides Hinata-sama. Do you allow me to search for ghosts with you, Naruto-sama?'

Naruto who had been staring expectantly at the boy, waiting for Kakashi to give proof that he was indeed the Fourth Hokage`s son, but when the boy suddenly turned to him and bowed like that, he suddenly clung again to the older teen, pushing his flushed face against his chest, where he mumbled something so garbled up the only thing that could be made out was `sama`.

Neji looked up from the floor with a slight frown. He couldn't understand at all what was said to him. But once Naruto glanced back, he bowed even deeper, feeling how his back started to hurt him.

'I'm sorry, Naruto-sama, I didn't hear, can you say again?'

'Don't call me '-sama'!' the blond said, with his face still pressed to the teens chest. '…and stop bowing.' He added a lot more quietly, cheeks still flushed.

'Ah! I'm sorry, Naruto-chama!' said Neji and instantly stood back, and fell on his knees, bowing deep on the floor. Dad told him to not ever do that, but it was Hokage's son, when it comes to Hokage you do everything. Kakashi blinked, looking at the young Hyuuga, feeling a little uneasiness.

'Naru… why don't you play with him, I have to go back.' He said, seeing that if anything, sticking blond to his chest won't really help the kids to get together 'I'll be just right… there, all right?' He said pointing at the side that was visible from the spot 'Be good.'

'Nooo~' Naruto whined and plastered himself to the teen, little fingers digging on his vest. He only ever saw other kids from affair, he had never actually talked to another. And this one was all weird.

Kakashi frowned a little, feeling more uneasy.

'Oh my, Naruto…' he said, slowly undoing the little fingers. He didn't have much experience with children and getting Naruto known with other people was surely not his duty. If anything, it was otherwise 'Okay, I will stand right here. But you have to let me go. Hey you…'

'Yes, sir?' came muffle from the floor.

'What's your name?'

'Hyuuga Neji, sir.'

'Good. Neji-sama, Naruto doesn't want you to call him '-sama', '-chama' or '-san'. Just Naruto. And if you're gonna kneel on the floor like that then how will you help me with searching, get up, please.'

Neji looked at him with a frown.

'Why are you calling me Neji-sama?' he asked. Kakashi smiled. Oh gee, a child with honorable suffixes problem…

'I'm a mere jounin, to me you are worth such a title.' He said 'Now please, say hello.'

Neji slowly got up from the floor, dusting off his knees and looked at the blonde. Then he smiled at him lightly to seem to be polite and serious at the same time.

'I'm Hyuuga Neji. Pleased to meet you, Naruto… o.' he said, handing out his hand like an adult would.

Naruto didn't verbally protest, but made one of those faintly animalistic whining sounds and stared at the jounin with big, sad eyes that told him he was the last person he expected to be betrayed by. Hesitantly he turned around to stare at the older boy, taking a bit more on his appearance and staring at the bandages covering his forehead with faint curiosity, but then he hesitantly extended his hand, shaking the other's clumsily.

'I'm Namikaze Naruto…' the boy said, eating some of the vocals and the bowels in his sudden bout of shyness. 'Pls`d to m`t you…'

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Now that he was smiling, the brunet looked a lot less threatening than before, maybe even nice. He thought no one here was allowed to smile… He was about to ask about it when a sudden flash of black among the bright colors caught his attention, and he pointed to the garden hastily.

'Look, look, the little ghost!'

Neji instantly jumped with a yelp, hiding behind the cage with birds, making them also jump and twirl. But then, at Kakashi's laughter, who just couldn't contain himself (much to his disdain), he activated byakugan and looked at that side. Nope, nothing special! But it was probably because ghosts were so quick and invisible. Scary!... But there, there was Hinata!...

'Hinata-sama!' he shouted, coming up from a cover and grabbing Naruto by hand to follow 'Hinata-sama, look out, there are ghosts out there! '

The blond followed excitedly, not knowing one was supposed to be afraid of ghosts instead of looking for them, momentarily forgetting his shyness on favor of the chase.

'Ah, finally some peace.' Said Kakashi and sat down near the birds, opening the new book. He just bought it, but I started quite nicely so he wanted to read it in every occasion he had 'So good…'

At the same time Neji kept on chasing the invisible ghost he thought he saw somewhere, lead by Naruto. And somehow it seemed that Hinata-sama either wanted to play too or was somehow lead by the ghosts because she seemed to be everywhere where they were. Finally, exhausted, he just grabbed her by hand and lead her to Naruto, not hearing her faint words about something and just sat down on earth in the middle of nice white flowers she liked so much and stared at Naruto.

'Maybe not this time…' he said seriously 'But for sure next time we will catch them! Just come to play with me and Hinata-sama!' he said. In all this sudden hunting he forgot to properly name the girl and show her to Naruto.

The blond stared at the girl, who was half-hiding behind her cousin and saying something in shy, quiet tones that were too low for him to make out.

'But she's the ghost!' he said, pointing at her, causing her to shrink back further. 'She took me to the bird room. You aren't a ghost?'

The girl blushed, the pink showing horribly well on the pale features of a Hyuuga and hid even more behind the long-haired boy. Naruto chuckled and closed his eyes, oblivious to the fact he hadn't been doing something much different just a few minutes ago.

'She's cute.'

'Huh? Hinata-sama is the ghost?' Neji looked at the girl as she hid behind him and frowned a little. Then he looked back at Naruto. 'But she can't be the ghost! If she was the ghost then I would have to be the ghost and my daddy would have to be the ghost… and all of us! And we aren't!' he said and looked at her again. Then he smiled, patting her on her head. 'She is my cute cousin. One day she will be beautiful princess and I'm going to protect her until I die!' he said and smiled at Naruto with much wider smile than before.

The Hyuuga kids had become Naruto's companion ever since. It would correctly be assumed that had the Hyuuga not had such a huge debt to the Hokage for interfering on the negotiations and allowed them to spare Hizashi`s life, they would have never allowed his son to get close to the heiress and budding genius of the clan, but as things were, no one even thought of saying no to them, even though their parents were always around , as if expecting the little blonde so suddenly grow fangs and tears their children apart.

As time passed, it became obvious to them that regardless of whatever the boy kept inside of him, he was just a normal child, so the security on them had been greatly lowered. It was this reason that the children were at the moment alone outside the Hokage mansion, eating some dango that a very battered perverted sage had gifted them with before getting inside the house. Hinata, who had been delicately nibbling on her treat, stared first at her cousin, then at the blond in concern.

'Weird in what way, Naruto-kun?' The blond finished the sweet balls on his stick and then laid back down on the grass, a complex, unhappy expression on his face as he stared up at the sky. 'I don't know. Just weird.'

'Maybe it's because Suna celebrities are coming to the town?' half-asked, half-wondered Neji, then he looked at the side where gates of the village were supposed to be. 'Everyone is nervous thought, because it's the Kazekage himself who is said to be visiting us.' He said and then lowered his voice, looking at Hinata warily, hoping to not scare her. 'Don't tell anyone, but I heard he was going to bring some special beast to us… I heard it's very dangerous.' He added and pointed his finger at his lips, pressuring at them with the hope of secrecy 'At least that's what my uncle said. In secret.'

'No, it's not a thought-feeling.' the blond said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand in a frustrated gesture. 'It's a … skin-feeling… thing.' Hinata started chewing on her last dango, her expression concerned.

'You fell on poison ivy again? I still have some salve…' Naruto sat up straight, giving his friends a long suffering expression. He couldn't explain it.

'No, it's not poison ivy…' A huff. 'I just feel like… something. Something…' He paused. '…I didn't see any beasts when I went to Suna. But there was this huge spider and my daddy looked funny when I grabbed it.'

'Maybe it's a new unknown thing?' said Neji and again looked to the side where gates of the village were supposed to be 'Kazekage is known of catching beasts, though I don't know what it means… maybe he caught something?...' He looked at them and at Naruto. Then he sighed. 'No, I don't think so. He was in bad condition lately, he couldn't.' he murmured and fished the dango from his plate and started eating it. It was almost cold, but he usually ate such things as he was never in hurry with his food 'Do you feel a weird chakra maybe? We can look for the source.'

'T`s not chakra...just a feeling.' The boy said, looking in the gate's direction fixedly for several seconds, then jumping up agilely. 'I'm bored.' He announced, not unlike he had done just a few minutes ago as he wiped his hands on his pants 'Let's go train when you are done eating.'

'Sure.' Said the young Hyuuga, slowly taking another bite of the same dango. It was fifth if not sixth, he still could bite on the ball and there were three on his plate 'Just let me end it. Though we can't train outside, main street is closed for the arrival to not kill people like us.'

White eyes glanced once again at the side where gates were supposed to be and took another bite, not hurrying at all, despite Naruto's bouncing. When it came to children Neji never referred to them as 'kids' but as 'people'. They were too special to be called like ever kid on the world – they had white eyes. And Naruto was their friend so he could be called that too.

'Just let me end my dessert.' Naruto moaned and let himself fall back on the soft grass, rubbing at his face in frustration. Neji was horribly picky with his food and always took the double or triple time a normal human took in eating. Hinata just smiled and patted his head consolingly.

But just when he finally took the last bite (which was a good fifteen minutes later) there were loud creak that could be heard from that spot and Neji turned his head toward the source. Could it be?...

'Byakugan!' he said, veining his eyes and looking through the walls. Then he smiled and smiled more, cheering a lot in an instant 'It's them! It's Suna! They've arrived!...'

Hinata jerked up and followed suit, activating her bloodline limit, something she had learned to do just a few months prior and that was still giving her some issues. That's why she initially thought the problem was with her when she saw something strange.

'Neji, brother…' she said, walking closer to her cousin and pointing at the figure she had singled out. 'Why does that one have his chakra spread like that….?'

He looked some more, glancing left and right but he didn't see any beast. Though one of the passengers of the coach seemed to have a very big source of chakra somewhere in his head. But it was probably a very good ninja. Or maybe Kazekage himself? But there was a lot of strong people, like this one in the front, or those sitting on a coach or the ones that sat on camels… it was hard to decipher who had more, they mingled and mixed nonstop.

'But I can't see any animal..' he murmured, frowning 'There's someone strong there though.'

If you were a Hyuuga, one would see a small figure curled up in one of the carts, almost deathly still. What had called Hinata's attention, however, was that instead of the patterns of chakra following closely the circulatory system, the figure had several additional ramifications spread in a sort of strange pattern across his body- and they spread to the giant thing glued to its back, even though the thing itself didn't have a chakra source.

Neji followed her gaze and his eyes landed again on the strong patterned ninja. He squinted his eyes, trying to decipher how the circulatory system worked, but he couldn't get it worked out. It almost seemed like if there were two different systems in one body.

'I don't know.' He said finally 'Probably a very strong and strange bloodline limit. Maybe we should ask someone older?...'

He looked at Hinata then at Naruto, unsure. Elders usually knew what was wrong with patterns and explained them if they needed to know.

Naruto stared at the gates direction, obviously not seeing anything as the terrain was higher up and didn't exactly allow for prime sightseeing unless you could see through earth, like certain pairs of dark heads. He smiled at them when they both turned at him, though. 'Let's go ask your father, Neji!'

He should be somewhere within the mansion….

The convoy moved slowly. The scheduled arrival was already late for three hours because of unexpected change of weather, and Baki, for no reason, kept on going forward, until the ninjas started loud protesting against such treating when they had warm clothes. But after getting a nice chill it seemed almost impossible to warm up again without a stop and boiling some kind of warm soup. Baki seemed to be against it (it seemed that the new orders were harshly pushed on time, but since he didn't want to share nobody was eager to follow him up) but finally ate the shared bowl of hot rice and soft curry. The only one who didn't seem to suffer on the freeze seemed to be the young jinchuuriki, but since monsters were monsters it was rather obvious he wouldn't.

He just sat through the whole meal in the couch and didn't even taste a bite. Amazing! And it was only fifteen degrees in the air! How could Konoha live in such a fridge, they didn't know. But then the things started to get worse and when they started to think they were closing to the North Pole, the gates of Konoha finally showed up on the horizon.

'At last.' muttered Baki and steered they people toward the gates. When they've got opened, he steered them inside and he rid in front of them. He looked at the clock they were passing. All would be well if they could say the second convoy to speed up. But he could do nothing and nobody in the village knew anything so… he could only pray they had a nice way and that the saffron haired man wouldn't feel too uneasy about the fact he changed it a little.

Gaara glanced outside, wondering what was that white thing, but once he touched the coldness which changed into wetness he freaked out and almost instantly covered up in the sand. It was… it was… still water!... And it was… everywhere!... Shukaku in his mind trashed. What was this? Trap? Definitely a trap! She knew, she sensed it!... Gaara trembled with fear.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Hey, brat.'

Jiraiya stared without surprise at the royal mess the room had been turned into. Minato had this thing about extending… Whenever he started to work, he'd start on a small space, usually a corner he'd fit himself into and then slowly start to spread…. If left alone for long enough time, he would take over completely over a room. That's what he had done in this particular room, where all Jiraiya could see as far as the eye were scrolls with hastily drawn arrays overridden by notes Jiraiya didn't know how did Minato even start to remember these things from memory, some of the seals and figures he was using, he was sure some of the ones he was seeing had been made up by the blond. Triangles, circles, pentagrams, yapuos fodres, mircos sancofits….

Sometimes he really worried about the mental health of his ex student.

'Brat.'

'What.'

The Hokage droned, as expected, lodged in one of the far away corners, looking over a scroll as he bit on apple with fingers blackened with ink. There was a lot of it around, mostly in splotches in the floor. When Minato was deep at work, he tended to forget where he left the ink and usually just yanked at the scrolls when he needed them, not caring where the dark contents of the jar fell, unless they did it on something he needed. Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage. The yellow flash of Konoha. Vane of cleaning ladies existence.

'Your guests arrived.'

'Okay.'

Jiraiya waited a few seconds, but when the only reaction he got was more quick writing on the scroll the Hokage had across his legs, he decided to try again.

'Minato. Your guests from Suna are here.'

'Yes.'

'The people you invited? Compatriots of your old friend?'

'Mhhmm.'

'I think they got lost and had to resort to eating each other to survive, though, several seem to be missing.'

'Yes.'

Scribble, scribble.

'There is a fire going on. Our only hope is to evacuate the village and run for the hills.'

'Mhhh…'

'Minato, I have a tumor in my brain. I have only fifteen minutes of life left.'

'That's nice, sensei…'

'Also, I exchanged your son for candy and porn. Mostly porn.'

'Okay.'

'…'

'Wait, what? What?' Minato suddenly looked up, finally attaining contact with reality 'You did what? Where's my son? What have you done with my baby?'

'Glad to have you back to earth, Hokage-sama,' the toad sage grunted, litting his pipe and starting to smoke as his student smiled at him in a way that made him wonder if he was thinking what his flesh tasted like.

'Ha ha. That wasn't funny. That wasn't funny at all.'

'It did get your attention, though…' he said, picking one of the single sheets of papers and looking at the complex diagram 'Minato… what are you going to have us do?'

'Stuff.' The Hokage grumbled, shrugging in his white and red jacket- It wasn't usual for the blond to be so curt with his sensei, but Minato was inspired. Which meant that he hadn't slept, eaten or even rested and thus was in an insufferable mood. He would probably apologize for it later, as usual.

'Am I ever going to find out what this *stuff* is about?'

'Yes.' Why did he even try? It was impossible to have a coherent conversation with Minato when he was like this.

'The Kazekage didn't come.' He said, picking up a few more pages to try and make a little more sense of what the hell Minato expected of him. 'Don't know what you two planned, but it seems he ditched you.'

The sage wouldn't have been able to pick a worse choice of words if he had tried, not that he could be blamed, considering he had no idea what the younger man planned, and much less about what had happened in Suna. Minato stopped in the process of zipping his jounin vest, his hand stilling ¾ of the way up, then slowly continued.

'I'll go see what happened. Please let Sarutobi-sensei know the guests are here. Kakashi?' One of the largest piles of unwinded scrolls moved, revealing the form of the silver-haired teen. 'Go check on Naruto and make sure he doesn't get in trouble.'

'Sure I will.' Said the grey-haired nin and stood up, making the bones in his neck crack 'Should I accompany him and Hyuuga heirs later?'

Minato stopped again, his mind obviously elsewhere, before nodding. He had forgotten about the other kids.

'Yes, please. I'll go ahead.' One hand seal later, he was gone in a puff of smoke, leaving Jiraiya staring in growing alarm at the sealing arrays. All of them were used for sealing, or compliments to other sealing seals. He didn't want to think about what Minato was planning to do with these, much less in combination with Suna guests.

'Tell me the truth... Should I be worried?'

Kakashi looked back.

'In case if it won't work – yes, you should. So worry just about having strength for it all and making it work.' He said with a smile with which he usually suggested a cup of coffee and a good relax. Which, in that case, was actually a very close to the truth. If the world was going to blow up, then they should watch it with sunglasses on and not cry over it. He smiled again and made a seal. A moment later only a puff of smoke suggested that there was anyone standing in his place.


	12. Chapter Twelve: He wasn't

Kakashi showed up in the Hokage's mansion, just directly behind Naruto.

'Hey kids.' he said, and Neji almost jumped, remaking it into a leap of awareness. Good. The kid was learning every day. But Hinata seemed to be fairly too easy to trick by that. Maybe he shouldn't do that after what happened with Cloud country… 'How are ya doing? Let me accompany you a bit – there's a chaos on the street and nobody would like you to get missing in case if you wanted to go out. Alone.'

The last word was said in a gentle pressure that could easily be translated as a warning. Even as he smiled like that.

The Sunanians were standing in the place they arrived in and waiting for orders. Even if from their arrival time passed, there was no one to steer them to a good place to warm up or a place to station at all. Some of them glanced at Baki but the man only got off from the horse and ordered the closest people to wait for Hokage, not doing anything beside the waiting in front of the door of coach that the jinchuuriki occupied. Who seemed to be rather nervous as sand swirled inside the canned space and the ANBU from inside moved outside to not get in the way. He glanced at the gates. No, no chances for the convoy showing up as planned. Oh well, he knew what he had to do and decided to keep to that. If anything failed – keep to the schedule. That was the main rule in academies, right?

'Baki-san.' The Hokage appeared just outside of the mansion that was usually used when a large number of guests were to stay for extended time, and calmly walked in, looking around to make sure his jounin and chuunin were doing as instructed and helping the Sunanians unpack and arrange themselves. God, it was hot in here. He had to keep in mind that he had specifically asked to keep the house well-conditioned, but the heat was just stiffening here. At least they'd feel comfortable here. 'I'm sorry for arriving so late, I had some urgent matters to finish up before leaving.' he said, smiling at the dark skinned man 'I hope the weather wasn't too bad during your trip.'

The dark skinned man answered with something that could be taken as a shadow of a smile, that stayed but didn't grow or expand. His eyes sharpened though, just as his figure straightened once he spotted the Hokage.

'The weather was equivalent to our standards.' He said simply, though some ANBU made faces at that (though only under their masks what couldn't be spotted ) 'It's us that should apologize for arriving so late. The sudden chill of the winter is not something that's easy for us to go through to accommodate.'

The sandals clacked on the floor as he clamped them, in military style. Yes, Hokage, just as it was told around, looked like if he didn't eat from a whole week lately. Funny, thinking about the condition the Suna was put in after the heart attack – and it was obvious that people were connected with leader's mood. Even at such place like this one.

'Don't worry, that was expected. We had the same type of issues when we went to Suna.' It was expected. Dry heat against humid cold; it would really put a strain on people who were unaccustomed to it. Speaking of which… 'Forgive me, but I had understood that besides Gaara-sama, Chiyo-sama and Kazekage-sama would be attending.'

He looked around, not only not spotting the persons in question, but none of the objects he would associate with any of them. '…Kazekage-sama didn't have any complications, did he?'

The man looked at him, slowly raising his eyebrow, then furrowing it a bit. Then he straightened even more. He was asking for complications already?...

'Kazekage-sama decided that travelling in groups would be quicker and safer for both of us. He ordered me to go first along with Gaara-sama and Chiyo-sama.' he said, unclearly sidetracking the answer. The things that happened the day before were too serious to not be personal and he was not going to give away any of what he got put at, unless it was absolutely necessary.

He blinked, glancing sideways for a moment then getting back with his gaze to Minato. His eyebrows furrowed even more.

'Chiyo-sama decided to stay behind though.' he said not changing the tone of voice. Then he gazed into the blond's eyes with hardness. 'I have orders from Kazekage-sama though. I was ordered to stay by Hokage-sama's side no matter what, at least until the arrival of his. At the same time I am supposed to take care of Gaara-sama, so pardon me, but we will both have to stand by you from now on.'

Minato stared at the man for a moment, his expression concerned, before smiling a little sorrowfully. 'I understand… I guess it cannot be helped. I'll let my jounin know to warn Sarutobi-sensei and Kakashi-kun… Gai, Asuma.' Both jounins stopped helping around and approached the village's leader. 'It seems I will be staying here to wait for Kazekage-sama`s arrival. Gai, please tell Kakashi to make sure Naruto stays away from here and gets to bed in time, and inform Hizashi-san that I will probably need to have an appointment with Hiashi-sama tomorrow.'

Gai nodded curtly, though not before giving off a shining smile toward ANBU that stood behind the Hokage. Three of them, including Baki, stared openly.

'Yessir!' he said and vanished in a swirl of smoke.

Minato waited for the diorama of crashing waves to disappear before turning to the bearded male, his smile unaffected.

'Asuma, please inform Sarutobi-sensei there's no hurry for him to come here, it seems that Kazekage-sama will be arriving later than expected.' He fished around in his vest, producing a scroll. 'By the way, deliver this to the council. Apologize for taking so long, and let them know I will have the rest ready soon.' The man stared at the Hokage for a moment before taking the scroll and nodding.

'As you wish, Hokage-sama.' The brunet said, also disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Minato stared after them for a moment, then turned around, walking back in place as he discarded his jacket, the heat really becoming too much.

'All is set then. I trust the reason Kazekage-sama is late has nothing to do with his health…?'

#+#+#+#+#+#

Once well outside the range of the Sunanins, Asuma took out a cigarette and took a deep, calming drag, staring at the darkening skies. It got dark early in Winter. He continued walking a little more, waiting perhaps fifteen minutes until the darkness really settled, before taking out the scroll and breaking the seal.

The Hokage appeared in a puff of smoke, his expression less than pleased.

'What happened?'

The taller man removed the cigarette from his mouth, staring ahead calmly.

'I don't know. It seems that the Kazekage ordered Baki-san not to let you out of his sight. You are supposed to stay there. They should arrive sometime soon…' He took another drag, softly expelling the smoke after a few seconds.

'Is that so…' The blond said, rubbing the back of his head tiredly. 'Asuma, I'll go looking for the Kazekage. If anything happens, dispel the clone and I'll come back as soon as possible. Let sensei and Kakashi know, and if anything happens, talk to Kakashi, he will know where to find a second clone.'

The taller male nodded again.

'Good luck, Hokage-sama, I will do as you say.' The Hokage smiled thankfully at the other male, then made a quick hand sign got the teleportation jutsu. Instantly, he was outside the gates of Konoha, staring at the path ahead of him with a frown on his face.

What the hell was Daichi trying to do now…? He had better things to do than go look for stubborn redheads trying to be interesting, especially when it would start snowing again soon. Also, he had the feeling this idea had to with the other things they had spoke about, things Minato had been very careful not to stop and think about. Now he had to go and think about them until he found Daichi, and go look for him in the middle of the snow. It seemed that the Kazekage existed only to make him things he didn't want to do.

'You really, really piss me off sometimes…' he muttered, starting to walk at a fast pace deeper into the road. Once he was sure his muscles were appropriately warmed up, he broke into a run.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The second convoy moved out as scheduled. It couldn't go the other way. The Sunanians were packed up already, waiting for the Kazekage himself only. After the biggest heat passing away, the saffron aired man moved from the desk and took a hat from where it always lied. One more check up and…

He was ready. He went out first, being the one to inform Chiyo about setting off and he sat down in the coach where two ANBU and Kankuro and Temari sat, looking at him with unhappy faces. He didn't return the glares, only waited for Chiyo to actually sit on her camel and ordered the moving out.

After couple of hours, temperature started to drop. It wasn't a big shock as they traveled at the evening when temperature dropped either way, but it still was a little too much. He checked on kids and nodded to ANBU who nodded back. After another couple of hours the convoy stopped and everyone wore the warmer clothes.

After some time, the first signs of snow began to show. He looked through the window with a little sadness in himself. He didn't feel as joyful as kids at the sight of the whiteness spreading. He had none. His life was just a never ending duty in which he-

'Baki to Kazekage-sama. Baki to Kazekage-sama. Over.' He flinched and looked at kids who looked at him with interest. He didn't mind them though. 'As ordered, I report: no movement from Hokage-sama at all. All events has been cancelled. I'm trapped. Over.'

He frowned. Gods. And he hopped it wouldn't actually happen. What did he do to deserve that?

'I can hear you. I suggest doing as was planned. Over.' The communicator coughed a bit. 'Agreed. Please, Kazekage-sama, stay close to ANBU. It seems I'm keeping an eye on an impostor. In case of any troubles communicate immediately, my ANBU will come to help. Over.'

'Good. Transmission's over.' He clicked the communicator on the idle state. Then he looked at the ANBU. They nodded back at him. He really, really did not deserve that.

That's not what Minato thought. In fact, after almost a full day of walking into non stopping snow, running into stupid thieves who had no idea who he was and eating snow from sheer bore, he decided that Daichi not only did deserve it, but deserved it thoroughly. Whatever it was supposed to be. That was the reason that when he finally saw the moving group in the horizon, he decided to just sit down on the nearest rock and wait for them to approach at the pace they preferred, stifling a yawn. He was tired, hungry, sleep deprived and on edge. Let Suna dish his worst.

Soon enough, the group closed enough to see him. The convoy didn't stop, though the people moved around and regrouped.

'There's someone out there!'

'Kazekage-sama! Kazekage-sama!...'

The saffron haired man frowned and looked out of the window. Indeed, someone was out there. ANBU looked out also. It snowed in a rather unhappy way. He squinted his eyes. And who was it? Ding-dong, he had the worst luck of the year. Who else if not the famous Minato Namikaze, Hokage of the years. He opened the communicator.

'Baki, you're looking either at the clone or impostor. The real Minato Namikaze just has been spotted on the way up there. We're still a few hours away from Konoha. Act just as planned. Over.'

'Understood. In case of any problems – I shall report. Over.'

'Transmission's off.'

He scheduled communicator as 'idle', looked at ANBU who looked back at him and opened the window. Cold air blew outside, making Kankuro and Temari shiver and hide in their corners.

'How's the weather?'

'Angry.' The Hokage said, smiling sweetly at the older male.

The other man flinched a little, but didn't change his mimic.

'Care to join us then?' he asked in less than friendly tone. 'I suppose impatience drove you away from the town if you couldn't wait for us to join the rest.'

'I was plenty of patient until you decided to change plans without letting me know.' The younger male said, his expression not changing at all, still set in that friendly smile, even as he joined the group. 'Hi Princess, Kankuro-kun.' he said, waving at the kids before turning to his parent. 'Care to explain what the hell are you trying to do?'

The kids nodded at him, though they kept their distance as he sat down. ANBU without words took them on their knees. Obviously, a clear order of eventual happening.

'I'm sorry, but I believe that news about my heart attack reached Konoha.' answered the man, looking directly at the blond 'I stayed behind because of personal reasons I do not plan on discussing with anyone as they're my personal matter.'

Minato leaned back on his seat, crossing his legs and still smiling at the older male, though his aura was far from happy.

'Do you have something to eat? I'm hungry.'

The man nodded curtly, looking at the ANBU. One of the took out a basket full of traditional food made in Suna that included meals of any kind, though only of the local food. Though there was a lot missing as the journey took some time now.

'Enjoy yourself.' said the saffron haired man, still looking at the blond without a moment of hesitance.

Minato thanked him and grabbed one of the sweet pastries, making quick work of it. He hadn't realized how hungry he was… And the truth was that he didn't remember when was the last time he ate. He was sure Naruto had had the great idea of bringing some ramen for him, but he wasn't sure if that had been on Friday or Saturday. And he probably had had an apple while he drew, as he always seemed to get cravings for the fruit whenever he had to work on seals… Which put his calorie intake in that of one apple on the previous day. He was halfway through the third pastry, licking some of the sweet feeling off his fingers, before he casually asked:

'How would you feel about getting some new tattoos?'

For a moment, everything fell into silence. Then the saffron haired man smiled at him, chuckling.

'Is this really a question I should answer? I have enough of them for the rest of my life.'

'I think a big one with the kanji for `stupid` would look nice in your forehead.' the Hokage said, finally brushing his hands to clean the excess of crumbs, and returning the basket. 'I'm really angry at you, I don't want to talk to you anymore for now.' He announced, the smile seemingly immovable 'I'll go see your grandmother.' With that he opened the door and left the cart, closing it carefully behind him. Jesus, he was really, really angry, and the fact the kids, ANBU and just about everyone were in that closed space, keeping him for talking normally irritated him all the more.

'Chiyo-sama~'

Temari and Kankuro looked after him, then, along with the ANBU, they looked at the Kazekage. The man looked like if he just got ran over by a truck.

'…clear.' He said and laid back on the seat. Really, if he ever thought in his life he would end there… He'd quit.

Once the ANBU were kind enough to tell him in which cart the old lady was in, he knocked, waiting for some kind of answer. When none came, he knocked again.

'Chiyo-sama…?' After waiting for some seconds, he opened the door and got in, blinking around until he spotted the heavily blanketed figure. 'Oh, no… Chiyo-sama…'

The Hokage said, covering his mouth and seating himself across the still body.

'…She looks so peaceful.' he whispered softly. 'Maybe I should say some words…'

Minato cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

'What can I say about Suna no Chiyo…? She was as short as she was good, or maybe one can said the evil affected her body, and shrunk it to the size of her heart; and possibly smaller. She trained generation after generation after generation after generation after generation of fucked up ninja (because she was like… really, really old), her techniques were wide and feared… and basically playing with big dolls, as she never quite outgrew them from her childhood. Which happened somewhere around the first great Shinobi Wars and says a lot about her character. She will be buried with the greatest honors in Konoha`s fanciest dollhouse… Which will not only be the most appropriate of caskets, but also the only thing she will fit in comfortable. Rest in peace, Chiyo-sama… your legacy will not be forgotten.' Placing his hands together in prayer, the blond kept silent for several seconds, only the faint noises from outside and the movement of the cart interrupting the prayer. 'Well, mourning's over.' he said after a minute, clapping his hands once and turning to the old lady with wiggly fingers. 'Let's poke the body some and then loot the corpse for candy and spare change.'

Poke.

The figure creaked, and fell down with a loud bang, spilling wooden part everywhere. A doll.

'A-ha! You've got tricked, Namikaze Minato!' was suddenly heard and loud 'ho ho ho' s filled the carriage without a source. Then, with a loud pop the old lady showed, having a lot of snow on her hair and shoulders, but not seeming to be moved by that and the kunai as thrown at the blond from two hands. As it missed (obviously) hitting the wall of the cart with loud poisonous splosh, the old lady sat down, still laughing. 'You brat never change! I hope I will get a tasty reward for such a vulgar speech over my dead body!'

'Just wait to see for what I really have prepared for your eulogy, Chiyo-no-caa-chama.' the `brat` replied, helping her shake the snow off her shoulder and looking around until he found some blankets, passing them to the old lady. 'The cake is waiting for you since this morning.'

He leaned back on his seat, winced as he got poked with the round, dull edge of the kunai and removed them, passing them back to the woman. 'Do you think murdering your grandson will have any political repercussions, besides just being immensely satisfying?'

'Ah, that's good, that's good. It's been long since I had occasion to taste poisonous Konoha's cooking.' she said, still laughing a little, as she wrapped up with blankets. Then she looked at him, still smiling, but her gaze got a little heavier, though not sadder. 'And what did that brat do again?' she asked like if she was expecting another joke from him, which was obvious she wasn't 'If he overdid it again then I'm afraid a little spanking wouldn't help getting him straight in the line. Nor will murdering – standing straight is hard while being dead, I know something about it.'

She laughed again, though it was far more quiet and calm laughter than usual joyful.

'What did he do?' Minato crossed his arms, looking at the snowy landscape visible through the window. 'Oh, I don't know… He just changed the plans when he knows that drives me insane and makes me worry. Then he made me get out of my village and walk all the way here in the middle of the snow to see if he is all right, and when I get here, I found he left Baki in place…' he made a gesture with his hand. As if he were squeezing something. 'I really hope that man gets a rise. Right now I don't even want to talk to him right, but I'm sure whatever Suna pays him is too little.'

'His money are the matter of Daichi only, so I can't help you with that, dear brat.' said Chiyo, looking at him with her pale eyes. Then she entwined her old, dotted hands and looked through the window. In the time like this the snow looked almost merry, but it was still cold even inside the cart 'I knew he exchanged places with him once I saw him, Baki really can't play Daichi well.' she added, pausing a little.

The clacking of hoofs was still hearable even in the snow.

'I wonder if anybody can. He was probably the best or maybe not. I don't know, it seems to be the secretive mission, an old lady has not been included. So I can't really tell you why he did that. And if you don't know…' She trailed with words in silence, quietly pointing out at the unknown. Who knows if not people close to him? 'Maybe Gaara would know. But I doubt he would tell.'

She smiled remembering the little kid who always kept hostile and oozed aggression once it saw her. Such a nice grand-grandson she had. 'But Konoha really is soft if you can't walk through your own snow without complaining and being a Hokage himself, ho ho ho!'

'Maybe if he acted more like someone who ate toddlers for breakfast and bathed in blood he would be more credible.' the blond said, though he didn't look like if he was having fun. 'I didn't exactly have time to prepare and wear something more appropriate, as your little one decided to leave replacement sticking to my clone, and I had to be out before he noticed.' And he had done so because he had been really worried, because he couldn't think of any reasons for Daichi to have done such a thing, other than because he really did feel unwell, or just to fuck with his head. '…I'm really angry at him now. You and the kids can have cake, but he can't.'

'Not that I would leave him any, it would only go for waste.' Said the elder, smiling at him 'He never knows what's good. And there…' The blanket rustled as it was tossed from the old shoulders to young ones, covering the blond head for a moment completely . '…now you look a lot more appropriate, brat, it lies well on you.' she said with a wink and lied back on her seat.

'Don't expect him to ask for his portion, though, he is probably thinking he is doing the most righteous thing on the world, as he always did until he burned on the consequences. But I guess you will have to at least talk to each other if you want to see this?' Her wrinkled finger pointed at the ceiling and at the first glance nothing could be detected. But if one watched long enough, the shape of barely, just barely concealed big scroll could be spotted. 'I can't unglue it from there nor anybody who doesn't know the formula can if they don't want it to had it destroyed and half of place along with it.' She said, looking at him from half closed eyes 'So whatever issues you're starting to grow here I suspect won't last for long…'

Minato didn't move for a moment, then slowly removed the blanket and pulled it across his lap, rubbing at his eyes tiredly.

'I've just had a very tiring month, Chiyo-sama.' The younger man said, looking off to the side. He probably wouldn't be this taxed if Daichi hadn't been an idiot and given himself a heart attack. Jeopardizing a mission based solely on personal matters was something he would have expected from Kushina, but not from the Kazekage.

And he couldn't help but start to fear that whatever Daichi had tried to do had something to do with what had transpired in the Village of hidden Sand three months ago. '…I just hope my bunshin already figured out where the real one is and is giving him hell for it.'

'Oh, no wonder, no wonder, I'm sure you had it through.' Said the old lady with a laughter, looking suggestively at the scroll on the ceiling 'This will go with a bang, am I right?'

She smiled at him and laughed some more, not containing her joy. Maybe it wasn't very nice to laugh at such serious face of a youngster who obviously had a very, very hard month – as it was visible – but she couldn't hide her excitement. So she was right it was not a courtesy visit with help of her medical knowledge. Finally some fun and the blond brat has just confirmed it. And nothing made life worth living like a bit of something dangerous and livid.

'Oh, don't worry about it.' she said, giving him reassuring glance and patting him lightly on the knee 'If that happened you will know about it. Daichi hates going unnoticed when he gets disturbed in what he is doing in the different way he wanted.' And she chuckled some more.

And indeed, he was.

'…clear.' Was announced through his neck communicator and died with a crunch. He looked at it with a frown, then tore it away from his neck, clicking it off completely. Then he returned his gaze to the blond in front of him. He was smiling, that happy fake smile of his which meant he was either boiling with anger or disappointed to the hilt of possibilities. That made him feel more bitter than anything, but also – started the flame of anger somewhere deep between those bits of bitterness. He was not doing anything wrong. Not in the means of the privacy, not in the means of policies. It was normal for kage to hide identity in between soldiers and use a replacement when there was the slightest suspicion of his life being endangered.

He didn't break the law – not yet. The blond didn't have anything on him. Beside the fact he was unhappy about something he didn't know. Obvious as he was not expecting that from him. He was not going to tell him. He only wanted to play this and get back his identity once Baki would arrive. Nothing much, more of a pointless childish game than serious diplomacy. But he needed this. And now, he was put under the twice as hard atmosphere.

'You.' He said quietly and let go of the communicator, letting it fall on the floor. Then he quickly came closer to the bunshin, looking at him in the eye. The blond shadow was still looking fairly mad. How sour! He tsked. 'I do this because I can't.'

And it was quick, almost not visible to the naked eye. But sound followed just like after every action that happened in environment. He slapped him squarely on the face. Not punched, because that would undo the clone, but not light as it would seem unmanly. Then, he released the henge, standing in front of him with his original, natural body and angered, despairing face.

'And now because I can.' He repeated with quiet, shivering voice. And he slapped the bunshin once again, on the same spot, twice as hard, but still not hard enough to undo the jutsu. Then, before any action could be done, he caught the figure by the blond hair and moved forward, getting to the closest possible distance without touching the ear with his mouth.

'Tell the Hokage…' He uttered in quiet, threatening whisper as his body shook with emotions. He clawed at the material of the upper cloth with the other hand, not letting go of the gaze that looked at him, piercing it with his own hawkish glare 'Tell Minato…' He smiled, taking out the kunai from his back pocket and glinting it in the faint light.

'Tell him…' he muttered with sultry, low voice that didn't suit the kage, the man on duty or the man in public at all '…that his brother is expecting to be treated with best regards and respect once we will meet, or the Suna will move away from the place at the state of permanent war. All right?'

He stilled, waiting for a second or two pass and let his head fall on the shoulder on a moment. 'Because you always destroy all the fun.' And he ripped the blond's throat with one swift move, sending it back to its owner.

In the cart, Minato suddenly lurched down and started couching harshly, feeling blood that wasn't really there filling his throat and lungs.

The laughter of the elder died like if it was cut as she looked at him, stunned. Then, a milliseconds later, she crouched down beside him, looking at him, worried.

'What is it? You feel sick? A poison?' she asked quickly.

The Hokage quickly shook his hand in negative, trying to control the urge to gag 'Daichi slit my throat-' he managed to bite out through the urge to vomit.

The woman looked at him worriedly for another second or two, then she blinked and started laughing.

'That brat! I knew it, ho ho ho!' she uttered, sitting on the seat again.

Daichi had…

Had… again.

And then killed him. Kages, what a fucking coward. At some point the coughing fit turned into harsh barks of laughter. God, he hated when that happened. The backslash of having a clone killed unexpectedly was awful, even if it only lasted a few seconds. That was the reason it was an advanced technique- You needed to have a certain degree of emotional control to be able to concentrate on a fight while getting the feedback of several deaths.

'I didn't know.' he said amidst laughing, rubbing at his eyes to clear the tears from them 'That bitchslapping was a standard for Suna training. Daichi certainly mastered the technique.'

Chiyo laughed still, though her voice swayed and quieted as she heard the way the blond chuckled. It seemed to be nice and normal to his tone of voice, and yet… It seemed to be more dangerous, if not furious than anything before. But then she laughed louder again, looking at him through squinted eyes.

'It isn't' she muttered between cackles 'But that's definitely nice to know what he does when he gets pressed to the wall. Hadn't been expecting that at all, ha ha ha!...' She laughed for a moment or two longer, then looked at him with a little more serious gaze.

'What are you going to do now?'

Minato's laughter slowly subsided, though he remained grinning in that faintly carnivorous way. 'Now? I'll go see my baby, sleep and maybe get some real food. I'm afraid you will have to excuse me with Kazekage-sama when we arrive, but due the circumstances, I don`t really feel like seeing the real him at the moment.' That bitch. This wasn't by far the worst that Daichi had done to him- The bastard had once gone as far as to *disembowel* one of his clones- but that had been during training. It hadn't been personal or anything- this was. Very, very personal, and Daichi was going to pay for this.

Maybe he had brought this onto himself. It had been stupid to think that after all he had done it would take a simple offer to take back the natural suspicion (and maybe by now, it should be already classified as trauma) he himself had caused. Daichi always got him wrong, and that might be the reason he always understood exactly what he hadn't meant. Either way, that didn't matter. He was tired of all of this. He was old and alone and tired.

'I'll do exactly as he asked.'

Kushina had taught him that if things were worth fighting for, you fought until the end of all consequences. But that didn't mean he had to play fair. He was tired of hurting Daichi, but that didn't mean he would stop doing it if the situation called for it.

'Maybe that will teach him for once to decide what he wants before saying it.'

This time, Chiyo didn't laugh at him. She only looked at him with a little worried but serious face.

'I don't know what he requested, but I know it's probably something stupid.' she said finally, sighing and entwining her hands again 'I don't know what got him to do that or why does it seem to take such a toll on your friendship, but I'd suggest the fact that Daichi is still pretty stupid for a leader of his village.'

The cart moved. Hoofs clacked on the snowed way. It was still at least half of the day – or in that case – day and night – until the village would come to the view of the first commander in front of the convoy. 'But I'm just a small old woman whose presence is the one from the past cadency of Third Kazekage.' She muttered finally 'And you're the Hokage. Do as you think would be the best, brat.'

In the village, the little chaos happened. At first, Daichi didn't see nor did he want to acknowledge they wasn't alone, the clone and he. Then he just stood still, glaring at the spot where clone was, not caring if he was surrounded completely or not. Even if he was to be prisoned, once Minato would show up, everything should go as he asked of. He didn't want to go through the consequences of his failed action. He did it I gain the peace of mind and now he felt more puzzled than he was before he moved from the village. He was not ready to act on wrath or explain his actions. He had to have bravery to say he hadn't got courage at all. And he didn't have neither.

He barely noticed when one ninja got away ANBU from him, but his attention sprung immediately as he saw another Minato enter the room.

'Are you the real one?' he asked the figure.

'No, and I certainly don't wish to be.' The clone said, smiling sunnily. This one could afford it- It had been created before the clone that had been eliminated and didn't know what had really happened, not to mention it couldn't afford to be dispelled. The Konoha ANBU had had enough of a scare when the Kazekage appeared and for all appearances slit their Hokage's throat. 'I can't imagine what I did to deserve that, but I won't be happy about it. Also, please refrain from killing me until the real Minato arrives. My ANBU get pretty nervous when they are not around me, and I don't want to have them go look after me in this weather without need. '

Daichi frowned deeper, feeling uneasy at the presence of the fake blond who seemed to be oblivious to what's happened earlier. Probably one of the first clones who didn't caught on what's happened. He tsked.

'Please, show me and my son to our rooms.' He said, getting the lost communicator from the floor and discarding his look in the process to look like he usually did around Minato. Which meant relied and indifferent 'We're tired.'

'I was about to suggest that. The blond said, nodding briefly. 'You look like if you need rest. So do I, for the matter.' Oh, he was on a roll. All those seals waiting for him… He wondered if his original had thought of anything in the absence. 'I figured you paranoid Sunanins would prefer to be left without any local help and just figure out where everything is and work from there.' He turned around, opening the sliding doors and guiding the pair deeper into the manor. 'The rooms for you and your family are on the West side. Kitchen is that way, storage room in that other, and the hot springs where we last left them. If you need anything else, you know where my estate is, and there should be jounin outside the immediate area.'

The saffron haired man looked at him for a moment with just beaten gaze. No, that was just enough for him for the day being. Three days of walking through the sands and the snow – sitting on a horse made him feel his bones from inside out as he rarely used this animal on the desert and now Minato's anger (which he deserved, he couldn't deny that. Not that he wanted to see it still. It was probably the last moment before getting the cold shoulder again, this time for long). He quickly regained his stance.

'Thank you.' He said, looking toward the West. He should've probably give his bones a rest in good bath, but he'd also have no one to leave Gaara with and he couldn't take the kid near such large pool of water or he'd panic. Laying on bed would probably be the best option now. 'You hear, Gaara? Your room will be just right to mine, get in there and don't come out until I tell you can. Unpack.' The red head nodded, still looking like if he was traumatized and slowly moved toward the pointed door, his gourd more hissy and jumpy than ever. The whole thing was probably annoying the monster who never moved out from Suna grounds too.

He looked back at the blond.

'That will be it for now. I will see you in the morning.' he said, then moved, but then he stopped in hesitation. 'And… remember what I said.' He added and closed himself in his room. Just then, there, with silence of the grounds and no light lit yet, he allowed himself to breathe with tire. Slowly, he opened the communicator. It hissed with a loud crunch.

'What's happened, Baki? Any report?'

'Original Hokage-sama is in the cart with elder Chiyo, still not moved since.'

He frowned, feeling the headache coming. With gran Chiyo? Good gods, that was either a sign of nothing at all or a sign of nothing at all, both being just as bad. Gran probably was informed about the whole scheme and he would get 'righteous' treatment from her once she will corner him alone. Now he prayed for this convoy to never reach Konoha. Like if that could ever happen. He enclosed the communicator to his mouth.

'Baki, enough of this theatre.' He muttered tiredly 'Dispel the henge. Undo the clones once you reach the gates. Mission failed.'

'What? What's happened Kazekage-sama?' He looked at the communicator with disgust. Gods, the most trusted jounin and he still couldn't contain his emotions in such moments as those.

'Transmission's off.' He said, clicking off the communicator and leaving it on the closest desk. Then he opened the little box he kept hidden in his breast pocket and took one small blue pill. There were three left. Because he already ate it all, because he didn't plan on staying over for longer span of time. Because he didn't plan on needing more. But as for now, he took one. After few minutes, he fainted into fake sleep dreaming dreamless dreams.


	13. Chapter Thirteen: Stupify

Minato parted with the group about an hour before Konoha came into sight so he could sneak back into village unnoticed. He found his clone back in the room, already working with some more seals with Naruto sleeping with his head on his lap.

'Baby should be in bed.' he said, giving the clone a stern gaze.

'Couldn't be helped. Baby saw me getting summoned and wanted to wait for you to get back. Next time you should try leaving the scroll with someone else.' Minato grinned self consciously and walked further into the room, careful not to step on the sprawled scrolls.

'What about baby #2?'

The clone pointed to one corner, where the silver-haired teen had dozed off as well. Poor Kakashi-kun. He really overworked the poor kid.

'How was Kazekage-sama?' he asked, leaning down to pick the child up, giving him a small kiss on top of his head when the boy just whined sleepily and wrapped his arms around his neck, nuzzling into his neck.

'Shouldn't you tell me that?'

Minato just chuckled, dispelling the clone and taking a moment to analyze the feedback- Well, he certainly hoped Daichi had gone to bed. He looked ready to drop off dead. Careful not to upset the sleeping figure, he moved to where the jounin was and ruffled the mess of silver hair gently. 'Kakashi-kun?'

…_she looked at him, her brown hair flying on the wind wildly. He moved, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do. The sun behind them shone in beautiful, sad tangerine color… _

'_Kakashi-kun…' she said, and her voice was sad, so sad it broke his heart in half and he regretted, regretted immediately what he said but nothing, nothing could be changed! It happened already… _

'_Kakashi-kun!...' The pearly little tear blinked in her eye, then it slowly slid down her cheek, The girl looked at him with teary eyes. The wind tossed her hair and his tie. No!... How could he have been so careless!... Stupid!... Stupid!... _

'_Tomoko!...' he said, trembling, wanting to hold her, but she moved away._

'_I'm sorry… I'm so sorry we can't be together anymore…' she whispered. _

'_Tomoko!...' he said, shivering, again, moving to hold her, but she again moved away, hiding her eyes and pearly tears in her hands. _

'_For that stupid mistake I did!... We can't… We can't!...' she said shaking on the wind._

'_Tomoko!' he said, this time really wanting to hold her. But she, just like an innocent little rabbit she seemed to resemble so much with that skin and trusting stare, sprung on an instant run, sprinting away, crying openly, further, and further, and further!... _

'_Tomoko!...' he said, running after her, but tripping on a dusty ground and falling on his knees 'No… Tomoko… Tomokooo! I lied, come back! I really can't live without your burnt pork chops anymoreee!' _

'Kakashi-kun?'

He woke up, a little startled, seeing darkness and dust and rolls and saliva dribbling from his mouth onto his chin and desk, wetting his mask.

…for the sake of the love… he'd suffer… and eat…

'Burnt pork chops?...' he muttered dazedly.

'I'm afraid not.' his teacher said, chuckling lightly. 'I'm back. Thank you for taking care of Naru, you can go to bed now.' Here, obviously. Minato didn't even know if Kakashi still paid for his apartment. Ever since the Hokage had decided to keep his son, Kakashi had been a permanent addition to the family, as he didn't trust anyone else in that charge. And maybe because he worried about what kind of things would go through the younger boy's mind if left alone. He smiled at him affectionately.

'Should I tuck you in, too?'

'Maa… shouldn't it be the other way?...' answered Kakashi, blushing a little at the statement and quickly getting rid of saliva from his mouth 'You look to be quite tired after… everything. Had everything gone okay?'

Good gods, it was embarrassing to be caught on sleeping while working, but at least he hadn't revealed anything important. He quickly got up from the chair and glanced toward the side where his room-for-a-few-days (which turned to be a few years from now on) was. Yes, a bed would be good…

'You could say I should have known better…' Minato chuckled lightly, absently rubbing his son's back. 'I wouldn't want to overburden my important ANBU captain. I can do it myself.'

With what the clone had been working in, it should be enough… at least initially. Working any more would be useful and because Daichi had done him the favor of being an idiot for the both of them, he could afford to relax and stop thinking about the other reasons for his stress.

'Besides, tomorrow will be a hard day for all of us. If Chiyo-sama or Kazekage-sama don't kill me, Jiraiya-sama probably will try, and I need my favorite meat shield up and ready to sacrifice himself for the good of the village.' he said, giving the younger boy a thumbs up that while in no way could match any of Gai's standard ones, it was similar enough for a vague shiver of fear to crawl down backs. 'I'll tuck Naru-chan in, just go and rest.'

He patted the fluffy tuft of silver hair one more time.

'Sleep well.'

'Hahaha… ha… ha…' Kakashi tried to laugh at what was said, but somehow, it seemed to be quite… serious… He finally decided what he has been debating over since he was given first scroll in this building. He DIDN'T want to know what was this all about.

'Have a good rest, Hokage-sama…' he uttered weakly, waving them both off and taking the last candle with himself. Oh yes. A good sleep probably would be what he will need now… it seemed that whatever was Minato going to do, it was going to tire his bones out. He had to be ready.

Huh?

He turned around. Something there?... No, nothing. He had to imagine that… When the light dimmed, moving away, the door opened again and one green eye peaked out, watching him again.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Blood… blood!...'

The sand moved on the floor and scattered, testing the ground, crawling on the walls. They seemed to be just fine to move on. He left it there and let it search for its prey. Then he closed the door. Mother was itchy. Mother was nervous. She wanted to eat. She wanted blood. A lot… a lot of blood… a lot… a lot!...

'Hurts…' he muttered to no one in particular, piercing the floor with still, unseeing eyes as his body shook, again and again, wanting to grow, wanting to cover in sand, to become bigger and more bloodthirsty. Mother felt insecure. Mother wanted to feel safe. But he couldn't let her. Father would be mad beyond knowing if he saw he became bigger in such place. He would threaten the mother…

His body shook again wildly, pressuring on his head and heart. He whimpered, clutching on those, then stilled.

'Hurts…' he muttered again in the same, ghastly voice. Mother didn't listen. Blood. He needed blood. Only that would make mother feel peaceful. Only that… Sand searched for its prey in the dark of the night.

#+#+#+#+#+#

He had been naïve enough to feel proud that he had been assigned to the vigilance of the outskirts of the guest mansion where the Sunanins were currently resting. It was a great honor to be selected to be within the state of the village's Hokage, especially when he had made chuunin just last year. Maybe if he hadn't been feeling so proud about having been selected, he probably would have cared more about the excessive security for a medium group of nins of a village that they had not been at war with for decades.

Despite the cold weather and the fact it had started snowing again a few moments ago, he was sweating. The cold air came in and out of his chest in burning little puffs of cold, and he knew he was panting, even if he hadn't done anything that warranted the action. It was a simple excess of adrenaline.

He hadn't felt like this since the night had exploded in fire six years ago, since his parents left towards the burning village while the few genins that could be spared dragged- kids only two or three years older than him, kids with parents and family screaming in the fire, just like him- dragged the younger ones deeper into the mountains and to safety. And yet… this was worse. Now, he was singled out, alone… and being hunted.

How, how could he have been so stupid as to let himself be separated from the rest of the chuunin and jounin? The snow would muffle his voice. Not to mention he didn't know where he was. Everything was white everywhere, and even when he knew that it was the only thing keeping him from identifying his location, he couldn't allow himself to calm down. Smiles drew themselves sin the snow and eyes leered at him from the shadows- He didn't know where he was, but he knew he was alone, and that if he screamed, no one would come.

_The prey was running. He felt it, she felt it, it felt it._ It was an easy prey, weak and scared, the prey that lost its way, the prey that didn't even scream for help. It was an easy prey. The sand moved, a millimeters above the snow, clinging to trees, hidden needles of pines, rushed through the darkness. The prey oozed of warmth and copper smell of living being. It was easy to spot in silence, in the dim night. The grounds didn't seem to be different from Suna and cold air didn't affect sand at all – it only cooled him down, but nothing beside that. _Blood._

And easy prey was scared and ran forward, but he was quicker and knew where to attack. The sand moved on trees and moved faster, moved quicker in bits. And when it spotted binding branches – it rained down on oncoming jounin. _Blood. Murder._

Iruka realized where the murdering intent came from a second before it was too late, with only enough time to see the seemingly innocent grains aiming for him.

'No.' he meant to scream, to cry, but only a faint whisper escaped his lips. He had time to see how his warm breath turned into a tiny line of white in the otherwise silent night.

'Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu.' A fireball exploded inches away, turning the sand into slivers of glass.

Immediately, strong arms sized him and then he was yanked away at such a speed for a moment he felt his stomach had been left in the spot- he looked up and was almost blinded. Maito Gai grinned down at him with his trademark good guy smile. His training weights were off.

'You have some nerve, trying to hunt where you don't belong to.' Konoha's Hokage stood on one of the upper branches of a bare tree, his white coat blending into the background if it hadn't been for the red flames drawn on it. On a higher branch, a small, deceptively lithe body encased in ANBU clothing laid crouched low, red eyes followed by pronounced creases glaring despite the apparent lack of emotion from their owner.

'This is not your territory, Shukaku-sama.' Minato said, his smile easy and free despite the fact his special shuriken were already drawn. 'Go back to your kettle.'

The sand, which hasn't been turned into glass, withered on the branches and hid, then wavered again, showing a big golden eye looking at the blonde furiously. He smelled it. _It was there, just there!... The chakra of other demon, just like him… A marked prey. An easy prey! A tasty prey. _Her, she wanted what was the others! It was a raw need, mindless and obvious. _It smelled good. It wanted it._ _He wanted to taste the blood of the threat!_

The sand flexed and jumped from the branch with a low roar in a thin lines, aiming directly for the blond's chest, but at the same time, dispersing everywhere, hitting at every direction that contained anything warm and with beating heart. The area suddenly became thick with dust of the sand. This was good but any blood was good too. The sand sizzled as the fire jutsu was shot at it again and scattered in every direction, only to be pushed down by water jutsu and whiter in the snow, heavy and cold. But that was not enough.

'Aaaahhh!' screamed some thumping heart as the sand brushed against the eyes and pierced through them – only with a few tiny drops of sand but it didn't matter. There was blood. Soon, a lot of other sand followed, forming a smile in the air as others moved for help, leaving the pray living, but bleeding. _Blood. Yes. That was it._

'Hokage-sama!' Itachi had jumped from position at the attack, and it was only a second after that her realized the Hokage hadn't. Minato took the impact- this time there was no clone. The sand drew superficial wounds on his face, hands and neck, but not on his chest. There was no blood to draw, there.

'You don't scare me, Badger-san.' The Hokage grinned, a grin no one would have imagined on his handsome, friendly face. He stared right at the golden eye, opening his arms in a somewhat mocking gesture , as if inviting the creature to see 'I've seen bigger and meaner.'

'Kuchiyose no Jutsu!'

From somewhere among the deeper threes a large, purple toad with white and orange markings dressed in a red kesho-mawashi. Minato immediately executed the snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse and Tiger seals, causing the Toad's loose under jaw skin to expand, filling with oil.

'Katon: Gamayu Endan!'

The tree where the largest mass of sand kept well away from the snow was reduced to cinders in a moment. The communicators cracked with static.

'Gai?'

Nara Shikaku's sounded almost awake. A wonder, at such an hour.

_Burns!_ The sand roared as it burned into the ash, sizzling, frozen in the fire, just before it died. The remnants immediately regrouped, forming much smaller source of sand which rattled and tossed wildly. One more time the toothy grin was in the air, but it was void of optimism this time. He was getting beaten. He needed the sand. More sand! Remaining sand from the gourd!... Now… now… _NOW!_ Gaara screamed, far away, holding onto it, pleading to not go, to not leave him alone, to not make him do this, to not make him bigger… But she needed sand now! _Now! Now! Let go, brat! Let go of me! _

The sand roared wildly, trashing around, moving onto the tree, watching all of them.

'Maito Gai here.' was the answer 'Good to hear you're up, Shikaku. The sand has been executed on A plus, but there are still remnants of- holly shi-!'

He jumped to the side, barely missing the touch with angry mass of loose stones, and moved into fighting stance, but the sand didn't follow him, sitting in the place, roaring, withering. _Let go of me, brat!_

'It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!... No, mommy!...'

_Then c o m e h e r e._ Gaara didn't move, wailing. It was losing. It didn't want to lose. But it was losing. The bits of golden eye watched the blond with furry, sitting in one place, not moving, not attacking. The blood tasted good. It tasted so good. Very good. But it was unreachable. He couldn't fight like that. It screeched again. He needed the host. Now. Now. Now. _Now!_ In the room, Gaara shook uncontrollably. The sand engulfed him, cracking on his skin, uncovering and covering his arm, pushing, moving… Finally, it made him stand from the floor. Blood… he couldn't… he felt hungry, but he couldn't…!

'Mother!' he begged.

No response.

'Father!'

No response.

Shukaku roared again. The sand lunged at the blond with loud screech one more time. _You!... It's you, the prey!... You're mine!... _

Shikaku cursed, following the fight with binoculars from the safe position he was in, Hotaru Hyuuga standing next to him and giving direction to the group of jounin she was was directing, byakugan eyes following the development of the fight.

'Captain, more chakra is gathering.' She uttered softly, her voice barely carrying through the wind. 'How troubling… Think you can race the sand back to the house?'

'Good. Leave the kid and go. You must either get Suna`s jounin captain or the Kazekage himself. They should be on the west side of the house.'

'Yosh.'

With those words Gai looked at Iruka with apology and sprung into the famous sprint of Green Beast which led him to the mansion in less than a few seconds. Just when he entered the house, he heard a loud roar inside and rattling like if someone was trying to break the door. And it seemed just like that. The door were all having holes in which sand sizzled, but didn't move further from door than on few inches. Didn't. Once he touched the floor with his feet it sprung onto him, barely missing. He jumped up, trying to move forward, but the sand formed a living wall which seemed to just want him to touch it, so he quickly backed away to the window. He moment he stepped outside, the sand returned to the state of sizzling beneath the door with a hiss.

He cursed.

'Hyuuga, we have a problem.' he said, looking at the door on the right side. How could it not wake any Sunanins? And especially his majesty? 'Sand doesn't let me go inside. Kazekage is not obtainable, he seems to be either sleeping or dead, though I'd rather say he sleeps through this…'

Which sounded almost funny beside the fact it was not funny at all. He tried moving in again, but the sand lashed at him. He moved outside completely.

'The sand doesn't let me get to the house.'

'Katon: Gamayu Endan!' Minato and the purple frog dodged as a second massive fireball attacked the largest mass of sand from behind, this time directed by the toad sage himself. The sharingan user was quick to make the seals- (Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger).

'Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu!'

He followed the trajectory of as many of the grains as he could.

Shikaku and the Hyuuga female shared a look for a moment, before the dark-haired woman turned her gaze to the house.

'It's surrounded.' Shikaku cursed, rubbing at his eyes tiredly- this really was unnecessarily problematic. Well, it could always be worse… He could be at home, where Yoshino was on the second day of her period. 'I`ll go in- Gai, stay close, but do not engage. Hotaru-san-'

'I have your back, Nara-san.' Nodding absently in thanks, he formed the hand seal- His shadow immediately elongated and shot towards the mansion, invisible in the darkness of the night.

Gai immediately moved aside as the dark shape moved out from the forest, cheering at how it went inside the house and moved despite being clawed at by the sand. That should do the trick!

#+#+#+#+#+#

Daichi had a good rest. Not nice, because it was too cold and even in his induced state he felt it through the covers and clothes he was wearing. He felt that something was happening, big, bad… But yet, pills made him feel like if he had cotton in his ears and mist in his eyes, he heard something happening but it felt too unreal to care about it. He…

…slept.

Which was more like laying unconscious while being conscious – he just couldn't and didn't want to move. And he'd probably lay like that till the end of the world (or how long the pill would work) if the sudden push wouldn't roll him over the floor, making him hit the surface.

Hard.

Gods… what was going on?... Where was he?... For a moment he looked around bewildered, not recognizing the place, feeling how his eyes hurt from suddenly being pulled out of haze and how his ears rang in the silence… Silence full of cold… Konoha. And it wasn't ringing. It was shivering of the sand. And screaming. Gaara was making a riot.

Just right there, right then! Like if he couldn't make it earlier, at home! He gasped, getting up, feeling how tired he still was and looked around for the source of his awareness. Then he spotted it. It was a shadow. A shadow on the wall.

'Don't tell me it emerged into a full fight…' he moaned, shaking his head trying to stay awake. The pill still hissed in his blood, making him feel dizzy. 'I can't believe it…'

As an answer, there was a small series of explosions in the night. Exploding tags, only a mile or so away.

Daichi looked at it, his mind still proceeding slow, so for a moment he thought about New Year's Eve, then about how nice it looked… Then he groaned and took out the kunai from the nearest pocket and opened the door, falling right into the sand. It engulfed him, covered almost immediately as he just didn't move, surprised that he just walked onto something like that. Until he felt how it bit onto his clothes and his skin, despite everything, anything… He screamed.

'GAARA, FOR GODS' SAKE!'

And it was too loud and too shrill, almost like if he was pleading but obviously a sign of anger. The sand stopped and backed away in an instant, leaving him with sliced clothes and scratches on hands and face. Nothing that a grown up ninja wouldn't bear or heal in a few hours. He had such a nice rest. And it was middle of the night. He'll have to use unplanned pill. He had to be rested before tomorrow. He had to. He moved forward to the neighboring room and opened the door. The sand roared at him, not daring to touch him anymore as it swirled everywhere, breaking the glass and tearing what was done from material.

'Calm down.' He muttered. The redhead whimpered and sand punched at him. He sliced it with a kunai and moved forward. 'Calm down I said!'

The monster didn't listen to him. He was too disturbed, too scattered. It already began to form another transformation.

'I am very disappointed in you…' he muttered dazedly and formed a restraining seal from the sealing scroll. Once he learned it he never forgot it. Because the monster never let him forget. The sand sizzled, roared at him with all its might showing teeth and eyes and then it froze like stone, in the midair. For a moment. He moved forward, getting to the redhead and looked at him directly in the eye. Tomorrow… Tomorrow if that damned blond really had a good idea for this…

…until tomorrow.

'Gaara, what did I say.' He said, every word dripping with venom. The redhead flinched and curled in himself. The sand budged, but still held still. The seal was starting to get hard to bear.

'I'm sorry…' he muttered quietly, looking at him with pair of green – still green eyes 'Mommy said…'

'Your mother's dead.' The redhead budged, but didn't say a word. He looked at him still.

'I'm sorry-'

'I am deeply disappointed in you, Gaara.' he said and released the seal. Sand, frozen in midair, fell on the floor lifeless, along with the sand that already covered the redhead's arm. 'Don't let out the sand. Don't do anything. I forbid you.'

'But mother-'

'Shut up!' he howled at the kid. Gaara flinched and sat down on the floor, looking at him with hollow glare. He breathed tiredly. 'Good night, Gaara.'

The redhead didn't answer. Only slowly, ever so slowly, the sand from everywhere moved from the room and moved back, forming a cocoon around the redhead, glaring with golden eyes, flashing teeth warningly. Peace. For now. At last.

He got out of the room, nodding to the young ninja outside the door. Then he got into his room and closed the door with a loud bang. Dead night. And everything reeked of Konoha's smell. He opened the lid of the small bottle and looked at the three remaining pills. Then, he took out ne and bit onto it with a dry sob.

Not yet… please, not so soon… he wouldn't be able to move from Konoha so soon!...

But the pills didn't magically multiply, so he only closed the bottle, swallowing any mental tears he didn't have in his dry eyes and fell down on the bed, covering himself fully, along with the head. For a moment, if he didn't see the world, it meant the world didn't exist. For this only one moment… And after the moment passed, he stopped caring again.

Gai breathed out the air he held in his lungs for almost whole time. All was good.

'Kazekage calmed the object.' said to the microphone near his mouth 'And went back to his room. Everything's silent.'

Shikaku released the seal with a sigh and cranked his neck, hearing the bones crack lightly. Maybe he could apply for early retirement… Changing frequencies on the communicators so all groups could contact the other, he started the counting. 'Maito informs the subject has ceased attack. Proceed to confirm… Hotaru-san?'

'Confirmed.'

'Hizashi-san?'

'Confirmed.'

'Kō-san?'

'Confirmed.'

'Subject is confirmed to have ceased hostilities. Proceed to confirm casualties…' It took roughly five minutes before Itachi informed the Hokage that no one had died during the quarrel, even if one of the chuunin had lost an eye and there were several broken bones to account for. Other than that, everyone just had superficial scrapes.

'That's good.' the blond said, rubbing blood off a cut on his forehead absently, looking down at the much shorter teen. 'Please have the wounded taken to the hospital and replaced.'

'Yes, Hokage-sama.' The dark-haired teen replied, quickly passing the information to the respective group leaders. It took him a moment to realize the Hokage was still looking at him. 'Yes?'

'You did a good job, Itachi-kun.' The blond said, smiling and ruffling the dark head's hair lightly. 'Thank you for the help. Jiraiya-sensei and I will be retiring now. If anything else happens, please contacts us.'

'Yes, Hokage-sama.' He repeated in his usual calm voice, even as he pushing his hair back in place, staring after the blond with a faint blush.

For some reason the Hokage always treated him like he himself treated his little brother.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The next day came without complications.

Minato stared. Though it would be more accurate to say that the Hokage was being stared at. Four pair of eyes were set on him and he was starting to wonder if any of those were planning to blink any time soon. In his defense, Kakashi wasn't staring, but that probably had to do more with the little orange book on his hand- though who knew. Maybe he was gaping from behind it, he seemed to be spending an unusual amount of time in that single page. On regards of late time activity, the meeting had been pushed from mid-morning to afternoon, and now the small group was seated in the soundproofed room reserved for political meeting, the intelligence scrolls that Jiraiya had written and the ones Suna had brought were scattered on the table, though they had hardly been touched.

He smiled at the group, a happy, almost giddy smile- Minato always seemed to get a small rush when he figured out things just the way he wanted them. The smile wasn't returned by anything besides the wide eyes set on him. He scratched the band-aid covering the cut on his forehead (It itched lightly), feeling a little naked with his headband hanging loosely from his neck instead of his forehead and finally put a hand on the table, leaning lightly on it.

'What? Did someone do a genjutsu and I missed it because I turned around. Should I do kai?'

'Please do.' his teacher said calmly, staring at him in the same, slightly horrified way as before. 'I'm having a horrible hallucination where you have completely lost your mind and you are happy about it.' He looked down at the diagrams on the paper-

Sealing at a cellular level? What was the brat talking about? Minato laughed, still looking entirely too happy about the situation.

'Please sansei… It's genius. I can't believe I didn't think of it before- It just occurred to me two days ago. Shukaku can't be sealed because he has already merged with Gaara-sama. It's in his blood steam, in his chakra paths, everywhere in his system. Then, the only thing that we could seal it in would be the system itself.' He explained, as if he were merely pointing the obvious.

'Minato, seals can't be used like that.'

'Why not? We have been using seals to regulate temperature, slow poison and stabilize heart rate for decades-'

'But that's influencing the system into something the body already works for, you are talking about- about-' he pushed the papers on the table as if they made the crazy contagious by touch. 'Brat, you are talking about manipulating the system into a completely unnatural state and you think you can do it remotely.'

'Genius, I know.'

Jiraiya covered his face with his hands and leaned on the table. Sarutobi slowly leaned back on his seat, staring at the young prodigy in disbelief. Weather it would be possible or not remained to be seen, but that Minato for a second, he wondered what would have been of Konoha if Minato had been assigned to Orochimaru`s team instead of Jiraiya`s. Whatever answer he got made him wish this wasn't a closed room and that the Kazekage was in no state to have people smoking heavily in his immediate vicinity.

Kazekage and elder Chiyo exchanged glanced. They thoughts they had during all that were completely different, but they agreed about one thing completely: It was t o o f r e a k I n g c o l d. Especially for old bones who remembered the heats that youngsters haven't seen in Suna in their whole life. How could they work in a room that was heated only to twenty something degrees? She was glad she took additional coat with her. And as for the plan…

She looked at the table and the scrolls that lied there, all unwounded with many adds and scribbles on all of them. It all looked pretty crazy – she didn't understand some things, as about – sealing the 'system'. As in what? He wanted to seal Gaara's body? His blood, his bones, his flesh? How was that possible without killing someone? His natural chakra system would be dispatched and would feed off only on Shukaku's chakra and if Shukaku wouldn't be able to feed on Gaara wouldn't work at all. And that would mean that the redhead would simply cease to exist. She looked at the teen.

He was crazy, she knew that. And also he did things people thought were impossible and found unfound. For example – those seals. She has never seen some of them before.

'That's completely crazy, I agree.' she said, chuckling laying back on her seat and entwining her hands 'But definitely not boring and that's a good reason for me to try. Maybe, in some twisted way it had chance to work – though I still don't understand what do you want to seal there. Sealing of the body would recommend sealing off every piece of It alone as every cell is merged into Shukaku's system. That's sounds like a work for a crazy doctor who has too much time to spare and by that I mean at least three hundredth years. Don't you think so, Kazekage-sama?'

'Aren't you the one of such kind?...' Daichi muttered, looking at the scroll. That sounded completely crazy. Not only he did want to try something nobody tried before with seals nobody ever saw before (and knowledge of gran Chiyo was beyond big) but he wanted to do this remotely. R e m o t e l y. That was a pure insanity and if he didn't know about that then either he was stupid or fell on his head.

He did only one thing that contained touching monsters and that was done remotely. It was putting Shukaku into unborn baby, living still in the womb of its mother. And by then, Shukaku was locked for long, hungry and concentrated on whatever was tossed at him, and what's more important – he was happy to be let out. Of course, he had objections as being put inside the host and then it felt like carrying the world on his own arms, but it was nothing – and he could say it again:

nothing – in comparison to what he could do now. Feeding on Gaara's emotions, distressed and full of hate he would launch a hell on them and putting such seals on the kid could mean only one thing: the sealer needed time to make seals. And what then, they were supposed to hold off a bijuu on its full lash for a few seconds? In few seconds Shukaku could move half of the desert and drown in it village that was thrice as big as Konoha. To stop the backslash of wind of such width would recommend usage of lightening element on reverse. He was not good at lightening jutsus. His chakra elements were wind and earth.

'I think…' he started, then stopped, feeling the stinging pinch as he looked at Minato. Gods, he looked so happy and so sincere – almost like if he discovered the miracle and if his knowledge of him from younger years was still accurate – maybe he did. Minato always had it for seals. But then, he always got carried away on that topic. Could he trust him with his own son? One wrong move and the beast will be freed and on a leash. One wrong move and Gaara – might truly die.

He stroked his head again, looking at the blond from half closed eyelids. Gods, that sounded like if he didn't wake up, even if he hadn't been dreaming at all. Was he dreaming awake then?... because what was happening almost didn't look better from bad dreams he had – Minato showed his concern right to him, commented on his state and wounds… but in polite, casual way. And it felt almost lukewarm, indifferent and so different from what he saw in letters that once the blond walked away… he started to wonder.

Did he really do right? Not in doing wise, but in acting at all. Did he interpret the words he got on departing back then like he should've? Maybe he mistook them for something else? And if he did, then what were they supposed to mean? Was all of his acting useless due misunderstanding? Did he commit the politic faux pas? Because Minato acted to indifferent, too cold, almost like if he didn't care… he couldn't, right? But if he interpret the words wrong… then maybe he didn't care at all.

Maybe he got his hopes up for nothing, feeding on something he wanted to see when there was none? Desperation tended to do that to people and he was, besides the titles and looks – only a human. He was alone for such a long time. He threw himself on something he didn't dare to glance at for fifteen years for not seeing the chances. Was he blinded by his own selfish greediness and desperation?

He looked at the blond again, feeling like if the words grew in his mouth, pushing at his throat, almost like if they were too big to get out from there. He expected cold shoulder, expected to be glared at or even some bad words, and he got… nothing. And that felt even colder than the room he was in. He didn't want to be there. Because when he looked at the blond he kept on searching for any signs of any kinds with desperation that was not worth it. And when he found none, he squirmed inside, wanting to stand up and scream at him, point his finger, get out from sheer humiliation of being mistaken. And it was only a beginning of first day. Good gods.

'I think…' he started again, talking openly to everyone, but looking at the blond. The blond didn't look at him. Why?... He tried to fish his stare again, failing, feeling lost. How was he supposed to act when Minato… didn't respond at all? 'I think I don't understand something. How do you want to make seals on the fully raging monster? And more – how do you want to keep them? Seals are ineffective, they need to have some reason to feed of or go on. Shukaku's chakra would reject them and Gaara can't feed them off his own chakra. How do you want to make it work?'

Minato shook his head at the woman's question.

'No, no, you are getting it all wrong, think- There is the hosts body, and then there is the tailed beast. While Shukaku's chakra is in fact running through his system, the sources of chakra for the host and the Bijuu are different.'

'And you are saying that you want to block the chakra paths for the bijuu, and leave the hosts intact?' the Third Hokage asked, staring at blond with interest.

'Well, I don't think complete blocking is actually possible… Basically, what I'm thing to do would be start dimming the flow of chakra with a series of seals. The last one should limit the amount of it to a degree that while it would still be getting chakra from the bijuu, it would not have enough of it to so much as effectively control the sand, much less make a possession.'

'Is it even possible to limit the flow of chakra?' the toad sage asked, glaring at the seals in front of him. 'It will be when I finish figuring out the last touches in one of the seals, but I need the original scroll for that.'

'And wouldn't that make the bijuu draw chakra from the host?'

'From what I understand, unless it gets exorcized, Shukaku is permanently merged with Gaara. If Gaara-sama dies, so does Shukaku, and crazy and pissy or not, the stupid badger wouldn't risk dying.'

Sarutobi turned to his student, who was massing his eyes as if he had the mother of all migraine was brewing behind his eyes.

'It might be possible to momentarily weaken the connection between the host and the bijuu`s chakra.' the toad sage admitted carefully. '…in theory. But it's as the Kazekage says: the seal will eventually weaken.'

'Not if we use these.' he said, passing two single sheets of paper with fairly simple designs on them.

There was a moment of silence as both of his teachers stared at the lines drawn on the paper, their gazes hardening. Finally, Sarutobi pulled them away, his eyes staring at the younger boy with sudden mistrust.

'Those are cursed seals.'

'Were.' Minato sat down on his hair, resting his chin on laced fingers. 'Now they are my base for a binding seal. The seals won't be in paper, I plan on placing them on skin.'

'And you think the bijuu will just allow you to get a tattoo on the brat?'

'Of course not. That's why I'll place them on Kazekage-sama`s body.'

Silence.

'You are insane.' Both white haired males uttered at the same time.

'Genius. Genius, I say.'

'Insane.'

'It's the only thing that would work.'

'You think this will make easy-'

'I didn't say it would be easy. I said it would work.'

Daichi slowly put the scroll he was holding on the table, staring at the blond with wide eyes. Cursed seals? On his body?... The elder looked at the blond with mild surprise, stunned for a moment. Then she looked at the saffron haired man and started laughing, loudly and clearly.

'There goes your career of having unmarred body even by ANBU's symbol!' she hollered, swinging faintly on her chair 'That's a complete madness, Konoha is lead by a madman! I like it, ho ho ho!'

Daichi felt like running out of the room in a hissy fit. He never said he'd agree to that! Especially not on cursed seals, nobody knew what could they do to him and he was supposed to stay sane as a leader of a village!...

'I thought I was needed to help tame the beast?...' he said, gazing at the blond with frown 'How do you want me to help if I'm supposed to be a paper mache for seals? To get a proper seal on the body you need to have the person concentrated fully on obtaining the seals and surviving through rejection of the body, you won't manage without me!'

'Shush, evil lady, or no more cake for you.' He admonished, giving the old woman a faint scowl. 'Don`t throw a fit over it, Kazekage-sama. As I said, those aren't cursed seals anymore. Cursed seals work by increasing chakra and affecting the body, and that's of no use to us. What I plan on doing is to use them to bind Gaara's body to the seals in you.'

'And how the hell is that supposed to work?' Jiraiya asked, expressions till grim. The plan was starting to sound almost coherent, and that was even more scary than thinking Minato had lost his mind. 'It's all about reactions. Think of what happens to the body during an allergic reaction-'

'And now you are comparing being a jinchūriki to having allergies.'

Minato continued, ignoring his teacher.

'-an external stimulus causes internal reactions. Those can easily be conditioned through medical jutsu, and those can be packed in seals. It's just a matter of figuring out which ones would work better.' The oldest male stared at the blond, thinking carefully over his words.

'…why Kazekage-sama, though? Isn't it too much a risk?'

'Several reasons. It needs to be someone directly related to Gaara, as it need a degree of similar blood to active and function properly. It needs to be done with at least a portion of Gaara's blood, and the chakra on it is poisonous. The damage will be minimized because it's the same type as Gaara's and the rate of absorption will be aided by the antibodies already in it. It needs to be someone that can use additional seals to aid them in case something goes wrong and with a large amount of chakra. And besides, do you really want to leave the key to handling the bijuu with someone else?"

Daichi opened his mouth to protest, but he had no arguments as everything has been put on quite well. He stared at the blond for a moment or two, then he frowned. Chiyo on his left still cackled a little. How far could you get with insanity to make it possible and obtain the possible? He remembered as he was called a prodigy when he was young, but those times were long forgotten. And Minato? Minato still worked fully on what he loved and got to the highs even the sage and Third Hokage didn't dare to.

An admirable view, really. His heart ached a little.

'This is a life-lasting decision.' He spoke finally, looking at the seals on the paper 'Unless Gaara will die before me in which I doubt will happen. Why do you believe I will manage? I just went through a heart attack and am under a big stress lately. How do you know it won't help killing me later in life?'

'Well, most of the stress comes from Gaara`s situation, isn't that right? You always had problems with things you couldn`t control.' Minato smiled at the older man. 'Shouldn`t knowing that you can finally control him help you get rid of that stress?'

Daichi budged like if someone had nipped him completely unexpectedly, tensing a little. After one glance at the sides, getting sure that no one found the choice of words strange, he put his elbows in front of him on the table, leaning on them in relaxed stance.

'I'm sure it will be great help there, Hokage-sama.' He murmured, looking at the blond with clouded eyes, though a plain hurt could be spotted in them. You childish bastard!... Don't you really know?... It hurt to think he really didn't. 'Though, as a leader of the village I have different concerns and this is not the only problem I have here. But you're right, he is the top priority since I can remember.'

Minato stopped, looking slightly concerned. As if what he had said hadn't been meant as a direct jab. As if he hadn't even noticed how such a comment could be taken and was just worried about the brief reaction on the older male.

'…I know it's a risk, but it's the only thing that would work. The only direct blood relations that Gaara-sama has are Kazekage-sama and Kankuro and Temari-sama.' Because Chiyo was actually sister to Daichi's late grandmother, and even if she had been in a direct line, she was too old, no matter how lively. And the only other option….

'Yashamaru-san might work, but I understand he has some medical problems...'

Which was a nice way to say that he couldn't stand near a fire from risk of having all the alcohol in his blood ignite immediately.

'At any rate, the closer to the hosts blood type and genetic makeup, the better the seal works. You will be basically using the seals in your body to manipulate the hosts system…'

Daichi frowned, his gaze hardening. The brief, shallow concern he saw felt like even worse nip, but he abstained himself from moving away. No, he couldn't play with what he wanted to look at now. He was in business here. He had to get himself in a grip. He steeled his expression and moved away from the table, holding himself straight.

'Yashamaru would never agree to that.' he said in a deathly voice. He knew that blond would never agree with him for anything that concerned Gaara and a monster – he told him himself he agreed one time too much. 'I will do it. But what do you mean by controlling the system? Seals like those shouldn't be connected to my emotions, only the host himself could know how much pressure or will is needed to control the Shukaku.'

'That's why it wouldn't work. Shukaku has too much control over Gaara-sama for him to be able to control it alone. By suing those binding seals-' he pointed to the simple designs Sarutobi was still examining. 'We will be literally squeezing the chakra of Shukaku to force it's influence to recede. In best case scenario, Gaara could learn additional seals and perform them himself. At worst, you would just dim the source of the bijuu and that would keep it from attacking coordinately.'

Daichi kept looking at Minato in silence. That was just… maybe not insane, but seemed to have less and less chances from his perspective. How was he supposed to control the monster all the time? By experimenting? Nobody in ninja story had such seals on and nobody could tell how much willpower would they need.

'What about sleeping?' he asked finally 'If the seals are connected to my consciousness, then Shukaku will be able to break through them once I will close my eyes.'

'You will just have to learn to not to sleep, simple…' said Chiyo, chuckling a little. He looked at her with sharp glare.

'What are you talking about, Chiyo-sama?' he asked, feeling absurd. Chiyo chuckled again. 'Like son, like father, you reap what you sow, Kazekage-sama…'

He banged his hand on the surface of the table.

'In that case, I refuse. I have to stay in my mind if I want to still be a leader of the village.' he said, then turned to Minato, waiting for an answer. Chiyo didn't stop chuckling.

'I still don't understand how Konoha wants to get away with this from other three great kages…' she muttered, looking at Minato from half-closed eyelids 'Such big things as bijous and jinchuurikis were always a very delicate matter on the politics scene…'

'Well, I could figure those things out if the people who brought the demented badger to the world were as kind as to show me the seals and tell me how they work.' he said, smiling oh so sweetly at the old lady. Stingy old Chiyo had just about put any excuse in the book to keep him from seeing the scroll, and Daichi, who still seemed to be a little not there didn't seem to get he really, really needed to know what they used to discard what he didn't need from what he created and fix whatever else was wrong.

'You don't get it, these seals are not meant to be activated constantly. They are just so that in case it starts possessing Gaara, you can control the situation before it becomes too late.'

Daichi looked at him like if he didn't understand a word of what was said. Chiyo nudged him lightly. The kid seemed to a little out of it since the very morning. Strange, as he got a good sleep and the wrath of Hokage hasn't dawned on him for whatever he wanted to do with that yesterday's trick. Was it really possible for him to be so tired from the battle that had place at night? Or was his condition still not as well as he said it was? But it couldn't be possible, she examined him herself. He was getting in the good shape in quite quick tempo. He looked at her with the same, absent gaze.

'I will bring it.' He said, looking at her like if he saw her for the first time in his life and got up from the chair, exiting the room. She looked after him until the steps outside hadn't silenced completely.

'I'm really sorry, it seems his condition is still affecting him.' she said in an excuse, looking yet at another scroll, then at the blond. There was still one thing… 'But what Konoha will have out of this?' she asked finally 'You have Suna contracted as allies and Kyuubi sealed permanently. Your reasons are not clear to me, explain.'

'Konoha has its reasons, lady Chiyo.' the blond said, smiling lightly. 'But so do I.'


	14. Chapter Fourteen: I confess

Neither of the kids noticed the Kazekage's presence until he was nearly upon them, and it would be a good thing to wonder if the Kazekage himself realized they were on the way before coming to the gardens on the back of Minato`s mansion.

The only one that was aware of the redhead's presence was the dark-haired woman with the bandages covering the fair skin of her forehead, who was sipping tea calmly while she watched her son trying to give something resembling training instructions to both younger kids.

'Kazekage-sama.' Hotaru said, bowing politely when he passed by.

Naruto and Hinata were training by fighting each other. Supposedly, it was so Hinata could get used to keep byakugan activated during an actual fight, but Naruto was more than happy to help with it, as Neji was as picky about training as he was about eating, so he got almost as much of near despairing comments on regards of his pose and fighting skills as Hinata did. And considering Neji got actual training with his father daily, unlike Naruto who was lucky to snatch some cool jutsu if Kashi woke on the good side of his bed or if he sneaked to the academy and training grounds, he probably had a good ground on what he was saying.

At the moment Naruto and Hinata were down to training shirts and unzipped jackets, feeling too warmed up from the exercise and having already discarded their sweaters several minutes ago, and they were slightly out of breath from it. Naruto already had two small bruises on his arm, another on his neck and probably a few others under his shirt, but according to the older byakugan user, only the ones on his arms had been executed correctly. And the one on his neck hurt a lot, he had the feeling Hinata hadn't controlled the chakra as she should have, not that he would tell her that.

She really was too shy for her own good. He had seen her train with her father a couple times and he always thought that if the guy stopped yelling at her so much, maybe she would do better. And yet, for some reason, when they were alone and Neji yelled at her that her spin had been too slow or that she hadn't used the right amount of chakra, she just frowned stubbornly and fell into stance again. He was about to launch an attack on the dark-haired girl when he heard Neji's mom greet someone, and he turned around to find no one other than Gaara's father, less than fifteen meters from them. His eyes immediately hardened.

'Naruto-kun…?'

The Hyuuga girl stared at her friend, then the older man, realized who he was and executed a perfect formal bow, as expected from the Hyuuga heiress. Immediately after, she walked the few steps that separated her from the blond boy and partially hid behind him, her hand clutching his sleeve as she stared at the redhead from behind the fringe of her bangs. If the animosity the man caused her simply because of the blonde's reaction was any way to measure the killing intention she would one day display as a shinobi, then Hyuuga Hinata was well on her way of making ANBU.

Daichi walked like if he was in another world. Even if the secretive meeting was still going on and precision of time was needed, he didn't hurry in one bit. More, he walked like if he was on a casual walk without any special reason to move from the house. The chill bit at his skin like if it wanted to bit his arms off, but he barely noticed it as he walked through cool white, white and white all the time. The air was so cool it was transparent – a complete difference from desert's wave. What was Minato thinking…? He wanted to make him a remote control for his son's insides?... He tried to do that so many times and yet, he still failed so how a pair of seals could do that? If he knew about them he'd do them ages ago…

No, wait. The blond thought up the seals. And it was actually a good plan. Impossible to do since Shukaku would just kill them all in the process, but still good. Why did the monster have to be so difficult on them!... And more, what was the blond thinking, acting like that?... No! That was not the time to think about such things! But it was so easy to say when the blond was right next to him. In Suna he didn't at least have to look him directly in the eye. If anyone ever gave out the prices for nerves – he should be the one to obtain it. Fifteen years and only one heart attack. He deserved the title of Kazekage for only that one sole thing…

'Kazekage-sama.'

He nodded, distracted, to some woman on the way and moved on, until something hadn't actually stopped his trace. A boy and a girl. Both glaring daggers at him. Why?... Oh. Kyuubi's vessel.

'Move out of the way.' He hissed slightly at the glare from the same blue and frown from the same blond and simply pushed him aside arrogantly as he moved on 'I don't have time for your issues.' Because… what was he- Oh. Yes. A scroll. He went out to get a sealing scroll. Yes. Where was his house?... Ah. He was staring at it. He moved forward again.

The girl let out a small gasp, and hurried to help her friend back up, the blond glaring murderously after the redhead, before jumping back up to his feet without even bothering to shake the loose snow of himself.

'K… Kazekage-sama!'

Was it this one?... Why there had to be so much snow! It was so distracting, everything looked just so similar- He stopped. Then he turned around with a frown, not saying anything. What did a Konoha's citizen want from him?

With a superhuman effort, the blond kept himself from shouting things he didn't quite grasp the significance of yet or making childish threats. He was the Hokage's son and he had a responsibility…

'…is Gaara here?'

He hadn't seen him. Kashi hadn't let them get near the estate yesterday and had left them with Neji`s mom today to make sure they stayed put over here. He hadn`t seen Gaara at any moment. He didn`t even know if he had come.

The saffron haired man stared at the kid for a moment. For such glare you gave me – he thought – I have nothing to tell you.

'Gaara is in Suna.' he said with the same frown. It wouldn't be good to let the jinchuurikis meet on a ground he had no control over at all. Especially now, when Shukaku was going crazy. 'Go play with your friends, brat.'

What was Minato thinking, letting the vessel run freely like that? Sure, he was playing with Hyuuga, but Hyuuga alone were not good enough to control the situation. Especially when the brat was so close to the place the redhead was locked in. He tsked and moved to the building again. Stupidities of kids. He didn't have time for that. He had a scroll to bring.

The man lied. It wasn't a thought, or anything body-wise that gave it away, but Naruto suddenly knew -knew- that what he had said was a lie- Gaara was there. The man was hiding him, and Gaara was probably alone somewhere, sad and lonely, because no one was ever with him.

'Gaara is my friend!' he suddenly shouted.

There was a moment of stunned silence in which he felt Hinata's fingers suddenly digging into his skin, hurting almost as much as the bruise on his neck. He suddenly felt terrified about what he had done, about what it would mean for him, for his father… but he also felt angry. Angry and hurt and small and helpless- he couldn't do anything for him. Nothing at all.

'You are not a good person and you are not a good father, but he's my friend weather you like it or not!' he said, his eyes brimming with tears. He hated this man. He was evil and unfair and didn't deserve to be a Kage.

'Naruto-sama-' Hotaru had walked closer and reached for the boy, trying to get him to calm down. He hated- 'I hate you!' the boy screamed, suddenly grabbing Hinata by the hand and running off inside the house.

Daichi froze. He turned around to give the kid an uninterested glare once he started shouting, but then it continued, he stopped dead in his track and stared at him like if he was made of ice. And he felt like one – big, cold chunk of frozen water. He heard those words. He heard them, somewhere… not like that, not from anyone, because nobody dared to criticize him since Karura's death, but he knew, he knew them from somewhere, this tone, this boldness…

…this glare… It was blue, blue skyish but the stance and pose belonged to a different person. And that was definitely not Minato. Kushina. Kushina Uzumaki.

'Even now?...' he whispered, staring at the doors behind which the blond vanished, then he turned his eyes to the woman. And it hit him so suddenly – she w a s there. She s a w it. She was the witness of whole scene. He felt fear. He froze, looking at her completely, the unknown woman of Hyuuga family. And then he turned around and spun in a quick walk that could be mistaken for running at the worst case. And it was – the quickest way of getting away from the place without humiliating the code of dignity with skipping like a cowardly rabbit. He entered the house with a slam of the door. The scroll got to his hands quickly, unglued from the furniture with swift incantation of formula and seals. He almost was ready to run back- To run back… He stopped.

'You are not a good person and you are not a good father, but he's my friend weather you like it or not! I hate you!'

'You hate me?...' he muttered like if he had just realized that, which, of course, happened months ago. But he felt so dull, so strange, everything was rolling down again and Kushina…. And Kushina said… Kushina said...

In an instant he grabbed the closest laying kunai, almost losing the scroll in the process and run out of the room. But then he stopped. He – what? He was going to kill the brat for what he felt against the mother who was dead long time ago? He was dishonored and by Suna laws he could do everything and demand everything from the grounds he was standing in, but that was illogical as Minato would hate him and the kid was right, he was a bad human, he and not a good father. And he wouldn't be, if only all this!... All of this!... If only she wasn't there!...

He opened the doors to the room next to him and walked in quick pace to the unsuspecting redhead and aimed at him with his kunai. The sand let him come as close as it he wanted to, only protecting the neck of the kid with the thin, but hard portion of minerals. He didn't see that. He beat at sand with the kunai again and again, not seeing the scared look on the redhead's face, letting the sand fall everywhere and hit the walls, the floor, himself…

'Stop haunting me!' he screamed at the kid when his arm was dull from the tire and the sand was still there, protecting. He tossed the kunai on it with all his strength. It bounced back with a loud clang, hitting the floor and vanishing under some wooden commode 'You're dead! You have no rights! You can't talk to me! You don't have to deal with it! I'm alive! And I have to!'

He breathed heavily, holding the scroll so tightly it crumpled, even if it was so big. Gaara sat there, unmoving, looking at him with terrified eyes. Sand moved, sizzling, nervous, observing him… In silence. He blinked. What was he doing?

'I…' he said, looking at the kid. Was he going crazy? The situation was starting to outgrown him, but that was not the reason to behave like that.

The redhead stared at him.

'I'm sorry.' he spoke quietly, shaken, not understanding, disturbed. He stood up straight.

'…don't go out of the room.' He commanded in quiet voice and slowly moved away, closing the door behind him. Then he hid his face in his palm and he let the world go round while he stopped to breathe. Taking quarter of that pill before that meeting was one of those stupider mistakes he ever did. Not the worst – but in first top ten for sure. He inhaled the air again. Okay. Good. Nothing to worry about. Those were only kids… He stood up straight. And Kushina was dead. He moved out to the meeting.

#+#+#+#+#+#

By the time the redhead was back to the meeting room, most had finished the cake, except for elder Chiyo, who was on her third slice and trying to get the retired Hokage to either make another one for her for failing to deliver his promise or have Minato make her another. Jiraiya had been oddly silent, having scooped up most of the seals he had created and was separating them in piles that he had no idea what he would use for, and Minato was ready to go get a search party to find the older man's body. Really, his house wasn't that far. Especially if one teleported. If not, that should take a chuunin something like ten minutes, and going leisurely. Daichi had already taken twenty five.

Initially, he had been irritated by the way Daichi was behaving- irritated by what he had done the previous day, for letting himself worry for the stubborn idiot, irritated about how angry he felt, about Daichi's inability to ever fight for him when it got to them- and simply livid about what had happened last night. There would be no lasting damage, beside Ebisu having lost an eye; and compared to what could have happened, it was a small price… And something that shouldn't have happened.

All things considered, he should at least have the decency to control Gaara for the first night, or warn them if he couldn't- If Minato hadn't been prepared, he had no idea what could have happened. If Daichi was doing this just to piss him off, he certainly was well on his way, not that he already didn't have a large head start on it. Well… That's what he had thought initially. Before actually meeting Daichi face to face this morning and seeing that he really was in no better state than the one his clone had found him the previous day. In fact, today he seemed to be even worse, and if he hadn`t seen Chiyo actually mentioning, he would have suspected the woman of having drugged her grandson.

And yet, he had let that tiny jab slip, just to see what kind of face the older man would make. The results had been well worth it, even if he still felt a bit guilty about it. Not that he hadn't brought this onto himself. Minato was perfectly willing to abuse Daichi to whatever length it took to make him cave in, and he probably would enjoy such a thing more than it was healthy for either of them, but he also liked Daichi. And seeing him sick, not to mention the idea of him still being weak, and thus vulnerable, scared him. Loses happened too often in the shinobi world. His only consolation was that Daichi would probably commit suicide before doing something as dishonorable as dying outside the battlefield.

That's what he told himself, and yet he was worried, because this really was taking too long and no one seemed to notice or care-

'Kazekage-sama is taking too long,' he said, getting up, smiling at no one in particular as he pulled away, as looking at anyone in particular might make him look suspicious and get questioned. 'I better go look for him.'

Kakashi was probably going to offer to do it himself, but Minato was already opening the door- where he instantly froze.

'...Dai?'

It just slipped out of him, like that. Minato had spent two years in the academy with this man, and other four later as a captain of his team. He had seen Daichi drunk, angry, he had seen him delirious, poisoned and sick. And he instantly knew something had happened, even when the cause escaped him. Wordlessly, he took the large scroll from the man's arm and dumped it carelessly on Kakashi`s hands. If the teen hadn't been there, the valuable would have fallen to the floor and Minato wouldn't have cared one bit.

There wasn't anything particularly shocking about the man's appearance, but he looked shaken. As if he had come out of a particularly bad genjutsu a few moments ago. Without a word, he grabbed the shorter male by the arm and dragged him to the nearest chair, momentarily forgetting he was supposed to hate him and make him pay and torture him-

'Chiyo-sama, something's wrong.'

It was Daichi's turn to froze – yet again. The last thing he expected while he walked up to the door for them to open and to find there the blond himself. It was so much of a shock he didn't react when the scroll was taken out from his hands, but then he looked around the room, noticing that indeed, everyone were still there. He was about to make an attempt at argument of not calling him 'Dai' as it was just scandalous, even in private – they were not lovers and calling it out in public was like a blowing the cover he tried to hide under. Not that anyone seemed to be too shocked, but he felt like if he was suddenly sheared of his clothes and stood in front of them completely naked. He didn't want anyone to know. Was it not enough humiliating for what has happened already?

He was not in state to deal with it all. At all. Not after what he just went through. And the pill was still working. And that was bad, because he still felt a little like at La la land and Minato's hand was very warm after going through this snow, so warm, so very warm… He sat down.

He looked at Minato again, not understanding what was he getting at. Something's wrong? What's wrong? He just brought a seal!... Did he want… Did he really not understand…

He saw the older woman standing up from her chair, and budged, withdrawing on his chair like if the elder bit him with that act. She was about to come closer, but she stopped, hesitating. Because he looked like if he was about to bite her head off if she came any closer. He let go of his breath and sucked in another. Then he looked at Minato, pale like if he was about to die. His hand was warm…

'What are you talking about? Nothing's wrong. Gaara was just reluctant of letting me out of the mansion…' he recited the excuse he had thought up for a moment like this with wooden voice. Then he looked at the hand like if he had just noticed it. 'What do you think you're doing? Don't touch me!'

He slapped the hand away, looking at the blond with hostility and turned toward the rest of the group, not looking at him anymore. He straightened himself up, trying to regain the most indifferent look, which was rather hard with messed up clothes and sand in the hair.

'I'm sorry for my lateness, my son is quite nervous in the moment. The change of places made him a little clingy last times so I had to calm him down. Please, Chiyo-sama, sit down, I'm fine. I brought the scroll. Shall we continue?'

Minato didn't look phased. He didn't even look mad, just stared down at the redhead calmly.

'No. We are not doing anything else until a medic sees you. Either you let Chiyo-sama check you or my own medics will.'

The saffron haired man stilled, looking at the group for a moment like if he didn't hear any word from what the blond said. The he scowled. He couldn't let any medic check him as he was still under effect of that damned pill and it could easily be traced in his blood. They weren't any forbidden substance, but coming into such important meeting after eating a medicament against insomnia was definitely strange if not unheard of. And if gran Chiyo was to see him he wouldn't be able to hide anything from her and would have to explain it to her in detail or she wouldn't be merciful and would probably tell the medics of Konoha to check on him anyway – for if he was not abused to take it or if it was not mixed with poison.

He looked at Minato with desperation, clinking his teeth shut, gritting them.

'I said' he uttered from behind the curtain of teeth 'That I'm perfectly fine. Or maybe you want to talk about something else right now? I don't have time for this, Suna is leaving in two days and I want this matter to be completely closed by then. Don't waste my precious time, Hokage-sama. It's rude.'

'Kazekage-sama.' Minato said, his voice dropping down to the low timbre he hadn't used with the redhead in over eight years. The voice of a team leader remind their subordinate they had been chosen as such for a reason. 'You forget that you are an important guest in our village, and should something happen to you, there might be repercussions between our villages. You have recently had a heart attack and your condition needs to be stable for the jutsu we need to work. There is no way any of this will be ready in three days. I suggest you to calm down and get accustomed to the idea you will be here for much longer time than that, and allow Chiyo-sama to look after your health.'

That said, he went back to smiling amiably, as if that exchange had never happened.

'We will retire and give you some privacy to have that check up, now.'

Nodding to the other two, he waited for the third and his sensei to walk to the doors, before retiring himself, leaving the scroll in the room, even though he was dying to actually see its contents.

'We can continue after a small pause. I will have Kakashi-kun bring some tea for you shortly.'

No way it would be coffee. Daichi would be lucky if he was ever allowed to spell the word again, let alone actually drink the beverage. Nodding to the old lady, the small group exited the room.

Daichi looked after him, stunned by the sudden haunted expression that Minato wore. It hadn't happened from ages for him to wear that facial expression, much less to him only. It was more of Kushina's ability. It only meant one thing: he drove Minato impossibly mad. He shivered. Tea? He needed coffee right now!

'Brat, what's going on?'

He turned around, looking at the old woman. He almost forgot she was left here so he let her come closer to him. He withdrew on chair, but she caught him by arm and held still in strong grip. He could do nothing against her right now. When she wanted, she could do anything to patient when it came to saving lives. He loosened up, letting her examine him, without saying a word. She didn't press.

After a few minutes and staring him in the eyes as she looked at his pupils, she frowned.

'Daichi, that's not a jutsu nor it's a poison. You're under a sleeping pill. What's the meaning of this?' she asked in a low, old voice. He closed his eyes. What could he say? His head was void of excuses. 'I forgot.'

He muttered finally.

'You forgot? Forgot what?' she asked in return, crossing her arms very Kazekage-like. It was a family trait 'That sleeping pills are taken before going to sleep to be able go to sleep? It's the middle of the day, middle of important meeting. We're not in the land of Lightening to change time spheres for you to forget that's not the moment to take it!'

'I forgot that I'm not taking any other pills and took the one because I thought it was one of them and after I swallowed it I realized my mistake!' he shouted, looking at her with desperation. Couldn't she just shut up? He didn't want to tell it to her! 'I'm just shaken by all of this, heart attack lately, no Gaara acting hostile…'

She looked at him for a moment, examining him with her eyes. Then she closed them with a sigh and went back to sit on the chair.

'Brat, you used to tell better lies than that.' She said, sitting on it and looking at Daichi again 'You didn't take the whole pill or you'd be sleeping on the floor of your room, paying for that mistake. You took only a small part of it which you had to cut out from the portion. Either someone made you to do it or you did that yourself.' He looked at her like if she was squeezing his insides and turning them around, giving him absolute pain. Strange. 'I doubt anyone wanted to poison you with blue pills from your own bottle since all signs show that I made it for you since it works perfectly fine. Why did you do it?'

He didn't answer. He only looked at her with those shining eyes like if he was about to vomit or die. Another effect of the pill.

'Don't act like a stubborn brat. I have my ways of getting it out from you and you wouldn't like it for me to do it now.' She said, seeing him flinch. Yep, a good choice of words 'Either you tell me or I'm going to call medics to check you for any kind of poison and Hokage-sama will know-'

She stopped. Daichi budged like if she had hit him.

'Please, no.' he muttered, looking at the floor, his knuckles white from gripping the chair 'I can't let this happen.'

'Why not? Hokage-sama is worried about you-'

'He is not worried about me.' he said, interrupting her speech. He seemed to hunch down on that chair, like if someone was leaning bricks on his shoulders. She frowned. So… that was where the problem lied. Hokage-sama.

'Daichi, it's about Minato, isn't it.' she said, stating it, not even bothering to ask. He didn't move. Bingo. 'What's going on? Tell me.'

He didn't respond. Her frown deepened.

'You can't act like if nothing was happening, you obviously had reason to act like that.' she said, leaning over the table, on the scrolls. He didn't look up at her 'The show you did yesterday also was strange and completely pointless – you went and did it to uncover yourself later? That's not how the protecting of your life should look like. What's the meaning of this?'

'I can't tell you.' he muttered with the dull but stubborn voice of his. She gritted her old teeth, relocking her jaw, then leaned back on the chair. That will be much harder than she thought.

'Don't you see your acts are straining the ties we have with Konoha?' she asked. He flinched, but not much 'Hokage-sama is a very patient person but you really made a pressure on his gentleness. When he came yesterday to my carriage he was obviously disturbed by what you did. What are you doing? Did he do something against your stupid pride you have to play like that?'

He smiled, then let out a bitter chuckle. But that was all. She stood up from the chair.

'Daichi, you should know him better than that. Whatever he did he meant no harm-'

'He meant everything he said.'

She stopped. What? She came closer.

'Minato is a brat but you know that friendship forgives the mistakes. Don't you know he cares about you-'

'He doesn't care about me.'

She sighed, laying her hands on his shoulders. No, this all still didn't make sense. What was the taking of the pill supposed to solve? Absolutely nothing, it only made the person become mulled and unresponsive like now. It was the worst condition for a meeting which needed a sharp mind for the facts that were supposed to be said for their originality and importance.

'Don't treat him so lightly, Daichi. He is your friend and he was since I can remember – the first time you came home from Academy you couldn't stop talking about him. Don't say you didn't, I remember very well. Then the time you and Kushina were in the same team with him, remember? You were inseparable then.

' He shivered, like if he had fever. She continued.

'You went through may hardships and survived because you were together. They both cared about you, Minato and Kushina…'

'Please, don't talk anymore…' he said, leaning even more down. She frowned. What was wrong with the picture?

'But it's right, don't you remember? You always had been fighting the girl and Minato had to separate you two but I know that deep inside you just had fun like all of them-'

'Please!' he interrupted. She stopped, not understanding. He was practically begging her here. But why? She wasn't saying lies or spitting nonsense. Why was he moved by this? 'Please, shut up!'

'Daichi, I don't understand you.' she said with a sigh and crouched down a little to look at him in the eye. He had them closed shut like if he was going through something difficult 'They both cared about you then and they never stopped, not after their marriage, not after your marriage and you know it. Such friendship can't be severed so lightly. I know he sent this bad letter after what you did back then with me, but he came to you after all, hadn't he? He still cares about you and he doesn't want you suffer or go through what you're doing to yourself right now – and I'm sure Kushina wouldn't want you to do that to-'

'I don't care what Kushina would want me to do!' he howled suddenly, pushing her away like if she burned him 'Nor I want their friendship! At all! You old, stupid woman, you don't understand anything, why can't you just leave me alone? Is it not enough that I have to go through those nightmares where all of them come to me and laugh at me, tell me how miserable I am and now you want to join them too?'

He screamed, screamed out as he couldn't take it anymore. She just wouldn't shut up and he felt like if he was run over by truck already and now she was there, just standing and talking, talking, talking about things he wanted to forget about!... And he maybe would, maybe he really would but she wouldn't let him, that old, stupid, witch with no heart!...

'Don't talk like if you knew anything! You know nothing! You hear me? Nothing!' he yelled. She stared at him like if he had gone mad. Maybe he finally had… 'Every time I'm not on those freaking pills I'm seeing things I don't want to remember and none of it is as you say, you blind, old hag! None! And when they all finally shut up he comes and he just can't stop tempting me, and when I finally give in it comes out as a spoof, and I can't take it anymore! I forgot about it for years, I finally did and when I did he came and… and this all, all my effort I made to forget!...'

He slumped down, looking at the floor like if someone has suddenly punched him hard to the point of fainting out. She looked at him with widened eyes. What?... What?...

'What are you talking about, Daichi?...' she asked with disturbed, nervous tone. He stilled, then slowly rose his head, looking at her with glinting eyes, like if he had a very high fever. And by what he said, he probably had, because there could be no possible way he… 'I don't want his friendship, you stupid old hag. I want him. I always did.'

He muttered. She stared at him.

And then, suddenly, all clicked into the place. The long talkings about Minato, the obsession, the fighting, the bad moods after Minato just left him alone to go on a sole mission with Kushina, his strange mood after getting the dry letter, his coldness toward Karura, his destructive behavior after Minato left the Suna three months ago…

'You're in love with him.' she muttered, looking at him still. He slowly turned his head to close his eyes and hide them in his hands. Oh my gods. 'Daichi, is this why you took those pills? But they can't save you from longing…'

'I just wanted to be somewhere else.'

'Where?' she asked, even if it was pointless. He shrugged.

'Anywhere.' he said. Then he smiled a little. 'Do you know that when he smiles, he has this small dimple on his left cheek? It never changes, even as he aged so much…'

That was a complete pointless and unnecessary thing to say. But he always wanted to say it to someone, because it always made him feel a little happier. Like if the smile was for Kushina, but that only was for him. Because when he once told it to her, she didn't understand what he meant. He loved him more than her. He always saw more and better than her abstracted view…

And now he could. Chiyo knew. It was a battle he lost. She looked at him with something akin to pity, but he didn't care. He knew he was miserable. They all knew he was – even the dead.

'Daichi…' she asked, hesitant. He didn't look up. '…does he know?'

He shrugged.

'Yes. No. Maybe… I don't know anymore.' he said, then looked at the door. 'This doesn't matter anymore, he doesn't love me, I know it. I just want to end it and go home… the sooner the better. Do you think we can go home earlier, gran?'

He looked at her like a little kid she never thought she would see in his eyes again. Then she sighed, her eyes hardening as she sat down on the chair again.

'I don't think so, Daichi.' he looked away 'But I also don't agree with you.'

He looked at her again, surprised. Then fear has shined in his eyes. She leaned back, entwining her fingers together.

'Don't be afraid, I won't tell him anything nor I'm going to meddle with that – you know me.' she said, looking at the ceiling 'But I also don't like the way you say it. It means that this has been going for a very long time and all through what's happened… that's an awful shame you still repress it.'

He still looked at her.

'You should forget about him, Daichi. This will do no good to any of you. It's a shame you still contain your emotions. Not a very ninja-like, brat.'

'I can't.'

'I can see that you can't.' she said and looked at him from half-closed eyelids 'But I won't help you here. Grow up, you're a leader of a country. You can't let this meddle with you. You can't take your pills forever.'

'You wouldn't say that if he loved me.' he said with a hushed tone 'Then I wouldn't have to take pills and I would be able to go on…'

She looked at him without amusement in her gaze. He closed his mouth.

'I would not give you my blessings either. What are you thinking about, Daichi?' she said, leaning over the table 'Those are affairs that teenagers can go through and teenagers of some common people. You're a grown man with kids and you can't think like that. Besides – poor Karura – what do you think you have done to her? I disapprove.'

He looked at her, hurt, but she didn't stop. That brat always done things without thinking much and hurt everyone around and now he thought he could just go and ask for troubles like that? Like a mindless teenager!...

'You're leader of the country, brat.' she continued 'And so is he. Even if that had any chances, and you clearly stated out it doesn't – that would be unheard of. For the memory of your kids and your poor wife I'm never going to agree to that egoistic wish. Grow up, forget, move on. But do that yourself. I helped you one time too much.'

'I knew you wouldn't understand.'

'I wish I knew I won't, maybe I wouldn't pester you about it.' she said with saddened voice 'But you know me, I would do it anyway, so I can only dream I could unhear it.'

He looked at her with sour grimace. She exchanged the gaze with him for a moment more. There was nothing else to be said. What was done was done and nobody could change that. After a few moments more, there was a knock on the door.

'Come in!' she said. The grey-haired teen entered the room.

'I brought the tea.' he said with a smile, but then hesitated, looking at them both. He probably felt the atmosphere was not completely right '…would you like some lemon with it, Kazekage-sama?'

'Yes, please.' said the man, not even looking at him 'As much as you can squeeze.'

Maybe the sour tea would wake him up a little. He listened to the sound of the fruit being squeezed to the warm water. No word was uttered.

Finally, the grey-haired nin stood it on the table before him.

'Do you want me to communicate something to Hokage-sama yet?' he asked, looking at him and when he didn't respond, reaching for his cup, at her. She nodded.

'Tell Hokage-sama that Kazekage-sama is feeling a little dizzy, but otherwise is fine.' she muttered, still looking at him with disapproval in her eyes. He drank the first sip. Awfully sour. Good kid. Maybe he was not that useless after all. 'And that we continue the meeting after the effect of the pill wears off. In an hour or two.'

He budged, wanting to protest, but she glared daggers at him. He took another sip, feeling the headache coming. He didn't want to discuss pills with Minato. But as careless as he was, maybe he wouldn't pester him about it.

He closed his eyes. The teen left.

'Hokage-sama' said Kakashi, entering another room 'Lady Chiyo confirms that the examination is over and that – let me quote: 'Kazekage-sama is feeling a little dizzy, but otherwise is fine and that we continue the meeting after the effect of the pill wears off - in an hour or two.'

He wanted to add that he looked like if he was just properly beaten by someone who didn't leave physical marks but he decided to leave that comment to himself. Minato was not alone in this room after all.

'I see… Thank you, Kakashi-kun.'

Minato looked down at some documents he had taken the time to review, adding a few more instructions to the mission update. He didn't ask what the pills were for. For all he knew Daichi could still be having heart problems and needed them. He would have to ask him later. '…ask her if she would prefer for Kazekage-sama to go rest to the house. I still need to look at that scroll, and for that, I only really need her presence and Jiraiya-sensei's.'

Daichi was proficient on seals, but the ones that specialized in Fūinjutsu were the toad sage and himself, and the old lady would be perfectly able to give him the specifics and tell him anything he needed to know for the time being.

Kakashi nodded and went out. A few minutes later he was in the main room again.

'Hokage-sama asks if Lady Chiyo would recommend for Kazekage-sama to rest for this time in his house or let him stay here.'

She looked at him, then she looked at the Kazekage. He seemed to be lost in his thought, drinking that almost lemon juice with tea.

'He will do what he wants. He is the Kazekage after all.' The man didn't even look at him.

'Maybe after I drink the tea.' He murmured around the sip. Kakashi nodded and went back to Hokage, communicating him just as he heard. Gee, couldn't they go there themselves? He felt like a servant, not a jounin. Almost like if the Hokage held some kind of grudge against the Kazekage. But no wonder, with that attitude…

As soon as the jounin left, Minato went back to reviewing some more updates on long term missions, ignoring the heavily smoking men in the room. Really, he didn't know how he had ever managed to quit with the both of them around. It was obvious that his sensei, if not the Third Hokage wanted very badly to ask him what was going on, not that he would give in so easily. He had a lot more training ignoring angry people than those two after four years in a team composed by easily angered redhead #1 and #2.

Surely enough, it took maybe five more minutes and half a small pile of mission reports for Jiraiya to finally snap, slamming a hand in the table and leaning on it.

'Hey. What are you trying to do, brat?'

'Now, specifically?' he asked, using his trademark smile. 'Mission reports. I will probably be very busy the following days, so I need to catch up with work as much as possible.'

'You know damn well what I meant, Minato.' he said, taking out a folder paper that he hadn't notice at any moment his teacher to have taken. 'Where did you get these?'

He looked down at the sleek curves of the cursed seal designs.

'Does it really matter?'

'That`s juinjutsu, Minato.' The older man grit out through the steel of the pipe. 'It's a forbidden seal-'

The blond suddenly made a gesture as if what his sensei was going at was of no actual importance.

'Were. They don't work like that anymore because we won't be placing them in the host's body. By applying the host's blood to the ink, the tattoo will act as a conduit. It`s supposed to react to Shukaku, so it`s not-'

'That's not the issue here!' the other hand joined it on the table and despite himself he drew slightly back. Minato had forgotten how intimidating his sensei could be when angered. No to mention that he hated when Jiraiya stared at him like that. Hated it.

'Why do you even know these, Minato?'

'…I needed them. No other seal would be as strong. And they aren't the same-'

'How do you even know how to do these?' Minato stared up at him fixedly, and Jiraiya was uncannily reminded of that oddly detached kid that had become his most outstanding student. That child that never seemed to quite get what human interaction was about or what it meant- a barely older version of Naruto with darker eyes and apparent lack of empathy… for others and himself.

'You let Orochimaru teach you.' he finally answered himself, and wasn't surprised when Minato looked to the side, his face a mask of indifference- he had taught this kid for half of his life, and he knew what that reaction meant. Minato had never known what to do with guilt.

Sarutobi looked at him, his glare suddenly hardening. Had he heard right? Oh goodness. That was just unheard of him… and he thought that nobody followed the dark haired nin steps anymore…

'Is that true, Minato?' he asked 'Because if it is, then you put us in a very bad situation, Minato. You know very well what Orochimaru did and who he is to this village.'

'If it's useful, I don't see why it shouldn't be used.' The blond said, going back to signing the paper, changing to another mission, though he was still unusually tense.

'Do you know what he did to get these?' Jiraiya asked, showing the paper in front of him as if he hadn't drawn them himself. 'Do you know the people he tortured, that he experimented on?'

'That doesn't change the fact those seals could be used effectively for other things. Like these.'

Sarutobi sighed.

'That's not the point, kid. Think of this for a moment. If it ever would come out to anyone out in our world, our reputation would be endangered as the village who uses forbidden techniques on allies. We would become suspicious on the political scene, not mentioning that Suna, for welcoming that help would be put into one side with Orochimaru and his jounins. By making him use it you act as Orochimaru's messenger yourself, whether Kazekage knows it or not and whether Orochimaru knows it or not.'

Minato finally gave up on pretending to work and stare at the older men.

'Orochimaru can't activate or deactivate those seals. Only I can.' he said, voice deceptively smooth. This was the reason he had waited for the very day to let his old sensei know. And the worst part was that now he couldn't tell these two men that the only reason he had rejected Orochimaru's offer to become his student back when the man still held respect in the village had been exactly because by then he had been more attached to his teacher than the pale man. Because that had been the only reason he hadn't taken the offer- He wanted to remain Jiraiya`s student and learn from him and have his respect and praise. If not, he would have accepted the offer without a doubt.

'So you are planning to place a seal only you can control on the leader of another village?' Jiraiya asked, dark eyes narrowed on his student.

'That's what those lines are for, isn't that right?' Minato asked, pointing at the added set of sutras on the side of one of the original lines. Anyone who knew ever the most basics of seals would know that. And he had made no effort to hide his intentions, either. 'Of course I did. Did you really think I would just risk our safety by giving another village complete control power their bijuu?'

The only thing that kept Suna from being a constant menace to other villages was the fact their greatest weapon was just as likely to exterminate them all as it was their enemies.

'Daichi is my friend, but Konoha is my home. I will help Suna, but only if I know it won't turn on us in return.' His teacher stared at him for some time, trying to figure out this constant puzzle the blond seemed to be- and couldn't. Minato was just complicate and incomprehensible… But he didn't think he would betray them. He had always been loyal to the Leaf, even when there had been no reason for him to be.

'…and that brat will accept your conditions?'

The blond leaned back on his chair, one hand feeling absently the headband hanging from his neck.

'Why shouldn't he…? They are reasonable. I'm giving him a chance to help his people live more securely. It's convenient for the both Konoha and Suna- that could only strengthen the alliance.'

The silence befell. After a few moments of rethinking, Sarutobi finally spoke up.

'This makes sense in this twisted, but sad way.' He murmured around the pipe, looking at the wall. Two ancestors of the Hokage's stool looked at him from there 'If he would accept those conditions, the alliance would only strengthen and make Suna dependable on us. That would make it work for future generations… at least as long Kazekage-sama would live. And he is young, so any further problems can be resolved later.' he said, chuckling a little. Not by him, he was quite old. But the brat was about to drink the vine he made himself, so he was not stopping him from tasting the sour taste he made himself.

'I think we can go with that, Jiraiya.' he said, looking at his pupil. 'For now at least, we don't know the answer of the Suna. Should we continue the meeting?'

'…it isn't like you to suddenly go so far for someone you decided to stop talking to for six years.' Minato wisely kept himself from telling his sensei he had spent most of that year bordering a permanent mental and emotional breakdown and the following years in a constant state of paranoia regarding his son's safety that still wasn't quite through.

'Baby wants to be friend with Kazekage-sama's son.' He said instead, smiling a little sadly. 'Have you seen that kid yet? It's the saddest thing I have ever seen.'

Sabaku no Gaara was exactly what he feared that Naruto would have become, and he wasn't talking merely about terms of demonic possession. He knew that his son suffered because of the way the villagers treated him, but he at least knew himself loved by him and the people closest to him, and he had been able to made friends with kids his age… That changed things. That little amalgam of Karura and Daichi thought himself completely alone in this world, and he probably was.

'…Kushina wouldn't have had it.' Kushina. Jiraiya shook his head lightly. He should have known. All the crazy things Minato did seemed to be spurred from his wife or the red-haired Kazekage.

Sarutobi slowly smoked his pipe, looking at both of them. He really didn't know much on the emotional background of the story here, because Minato was Jiraiya's pupil, not his. He only heard some facts on that and knew that indeed, going so far for a friend after breaking up the line of friendship for six years was strange, but Minato had his reasons. Who would be concerned by alliances from affair that didn't need attention when the world has crumbled around your own home?

He also didn't look at the object they were supposed to exorcize nor he planned to before the actual sealing. Things like emotions were long gone from his dictionary – he was taught different than youngsters. He could care – but in fatherly way for his own villagers. If other kages didn't – it was not his problem. He was there only because the kid asked him to as it was a meddling between two countries. Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn't. Who knew – she was number one unpredictable kunoichi from the land of Whirlpool and he never could quite grasp what was running around her head. He smoked his pipe once more. The smoke was grey.

'You take all responsibility by yourself. I don't want to have any part in that if this fails.' he spoke finally.

'It won't fail, Sarutobi-sensei.' The blond said softly, still looking off to the side. 'The most I would ask of you is to cover for Kazekage-sama and I when we actually go through it.'

And that could easily be done by any other nin he trusted in.

'I just wanted you to know what I would do.'

Jiraiya suddenly chuckled, emptying his pipe in the ashtray.

'Are you saying you were concerned about what we would think of you if we found out?'

Minato didn't answer.

Sarutobi chuckled a bit.

'You knew we wouldn't be very happy, right, kid?' he said, looking at the blond 'Smart move, I don't feel as bad as I would if I suddenly found out this being done behind our back…'

'I would never do something like that.' the younger man said gravelly, getting up and leaving the room quickly. No, he would never... Sarutobi sensei had taken him along with the small group of survivors from what was left of the small village he had lived in and given him a home in his own, and Jiraiya-sensei had been the first person that had made him feel like if he died overnight it would matter to someone. But that didn't mean he still didn't know how to say or show these things, and that made him uncomfortable. Jiraiya stared after him, his eyes slowly going to the paper he had left on the table, picking it back up seeing the original. Seeing the modifications on top. How did this kid even think up things such as these…?

'Do you ever stop worrying about your students, sensei?'

Sarutobi smiled, looking at the back of white haired head. Good question, really.

'No, especially not about rebellious ones.' he said, taking yet another breath of tobacco 'I don't think it's even possible. I just let them go and wonder if I taught them right things in this life…'

And sometimes it worked. He had the example in front of himself. But sometimes… Maybe that was not the best time to think about it now. Orochimaru probably thought he was doing the right thing. Like them all.

'I don't know what scares me the most,' the toad sage said with a sigh, the hiding the seals again inside his clothing. 'That his brat turns out to be like him, like the mother, or like the both of them.'

He couldn't help but pity the poor jonin that would be burdened with taking care of Namikaze Naruto when he will become a genin.


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Fly on the wall

The Hokage met Kakashi halfway back to the room and was informed of the Kazekage´s answer; after which he gave his jonin a good head ruffle to properly embarrass the teen and make himself feel a little more like himself. How uncomfortable. He hadn't really expected to be able to keep a secret that he had actually taken interest in some of the missing nin´s teachings, but he had always known that when the secret came out it wouldn't be pretty. Not because he didn´t think he was right, just because he had known that his sensei would look at him like that- with disappointment, with questions as of if he was traitor- and the mere idea of it made his skin itch. And speaking of itches… He knocked on the door twice, then entered the room.

'How are you feeling, Kazekage-sama?'

The saffron haired man snorted in his tea, like if someone has just hit him hard on the back. What the…

'Ah, Hokage-sama-…' he said, quickly wiping the droplets of the tea from his chin and coughing up the rest in the hand. The mulling effect of the pill was wearing off but it still held some control over him and would have it for at least an hour from now on – as he finally knew how long it was supposed to work – so his senses were still dulled. And, being lost in thought after what has just happened, he simply didn't notice anyone coming to the room. How un-ninja like. And all of worst people it had to be the blond… He looked away.

'As I said, I'm fine' he murmured, sipping another portion of tea to cover the burning sensation of inhaling the previous portion in the wrong part of esophagus 'But Chiyo-sama says I need to rest a bit before I feel better…'

'One to two hours.' added the woman not looking at him. He was almost ready to throw the cup at the grey head of hers 'Effects shouldn't take any longer than that considering in the state you're in.'

'Thank you, Chiyo-sama' he said through gritted teeth in tone which sounded more like 'Shut up, old hagger' and actually it was what he really wanted to say right now. Damned diplomacy 'So I will go and lay down a bit after I drink this up.'

He sipped on his tea and grimaced a little bit. It was too sour and he didn't mind sipping it slowly but now, as Minato reentered the room he just wanted to jug it down and get the hell out of there. Which was not easy to do without suspicion and larger gulps of tea were killing off his bud tastes. And he couldn't show his disapproval or Minato would make him wait for another tea or something stupid like that. Chiyo looked at him with irony in her eyes. He looked away from her, gaping at falling snow behind the window. As hideous the frozen water was, at least it was not boring holes in his skull.

'That's good to know.' the blond said, completely ignoring the pair's reactions. It was obvious Daichi was still somewhere else from where he should be and either that or something else had pissed granny. Either way, he had been nice enough to Daichi for a single day. 'As I said before, I can easily manage as long as I Have Chiyo-sama`s assistance. If you would prefer to simply go rest, we can meet again tomorrow, as I will need some time to analyze the seals. Jiraiya-sensei and Sarutobi-sama are finishing smoking and should return shortly. '

His eyes turned to the large scroll that had been moved to the table, expression bordering on greedy.

Daichi turned his gaze toward the blond with a frown. What? He was letting him go? Fine, he was more than happy to use that. He sipped on the tea again and left it, not drank up, on the table, looking at the corner of the room. The sealing scroll. That was also perfectly fine, he didn't want to look at the page of history of his life which made him feel worse every time he opened it. Not that Chiyo knew everything, but she knew a lot and if that was good enough for the blond that was, fine, really fine. He could go out and lie down or… go sightseeing or… feed the pigeons…

…that bastard. What was he supposed to do with himself for the rest of the day? He couldn't just bite down on the pill because he had little left so he had to stay awake for the rest of the day. But inactivity made him think and he didn't want to think. He needed to do something to occupy his mind from the wandering through the ghosts of the past. He slowly got up and came to the corner to take the scroll from the floor. It was a little crippled on the surface from his doings, but otherwise it was brand new – fresh as one could say. But he was reluctant to let go.

'I could explain the annotations.' He murmured, not looking at the pair behind him 'There are also few things nobody noticed before while resealing the demon…' he added, unsure. Not that it was really important. But he wanted to work. More than vanish from there. Because… actually he wanted to stay close, not away. But away was more healthy. Was it?

'I could help.' He added, then looked at Minato. It hurt that the blond was looking at the scroll like if it was a piece of naked woman dressed up in juicy meat and ignoring him completely. Maybe, for his own piece of mind, he should come half naked for the next meeting. This coldness toward him was suffocating. 'It's not like I have anything better to do.'

'Oh…?' Minato turned towards the older man, and that deep, cruel, hungry part of himself felt immediately soothed, like a large, dangerous cat stroked down into complacency. Daichi always made him feel like that. What the other wanted was obvious, or at least it was to him- Daichi wanted to have his individual attention and to be pulled apart from the rest, and know himself important and special. That such a strong, whole man felt like that for him; that he was needed at such level by person he admired so much made him feel almost like a starving animal. Poor Dai. If he didn't like him so much, he would probably pity him.

'We will definitely need your help, Kazekage-sama.' The younger man said, his expression gentle, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit like trying to soothe a stubborn child that didn't want to go to bed 'But there is no need for you to be present right now, as we won't be working in depth with them yet. I just need to understand a few things about how it was done and what type of seals were used, and then start selecting which ones would be appropriate form the ones I made. It's probably best for you to go have a rest so you can provide us with health to your full abilities tomorrow.'

Daichi stilled, looking at the soft expression, searching for any sign there was a wink, a catch, an excuse invisible for everyone else but for him only, letting him stay. When he found none, he felt like throwing the said scroll on the man's head. Tomorrow? Tomorrow! He'd go crazy in this village! Why did he agree in the first place?

'Right.' He said, trying his best to contain the trembling of his voice, trying not to show how hurt he was by being thrown out of the room so lightly 'You're completely right, Hokage-sama. I won't be of use in such state. Please, excuse me…'

He gave the blond the scroll, almost tossed it too carelessly for such thing – an inch less of an attention and it would be handed to the floor and not to the blond's hands. Then he came out of the room , not even looking at the elder. That bastard, he wanted to work alone? He could work alone! Here, know the generosity of Suna! You selfish, ungrateful, hideous!...

'Arrghh!' he growled through his teeth, messing up his hair and kicking some piece of white snow on his way. People on the street stared at him. Why did he have to fall for the blond!... Couldn't he go for something less commanding, less indifferent? Maybe Kushina was right, maybe he only liked suffering, but it didn't hurt good at all!... If he could he'd crave his heart out and toss it away, maybe the wound would hurt less than what was served to him right now…

'Everything's all right, Kazekage-sama?' he heard. He looked up, seeing the indifferent mask of ANBU before him, looking at him. He was probably looking very unusual, walking with his hands in the head like that. He coughed, straightening himself.

'Of course it's all right. Please, don't make a ruckus over something stupid.' He bit through his mouth, looking at them with unhealthy glare. ANBU looked at themselves and turned to leave. He looked at them. They always came in when they were not needed, when he didn't want them, and when he wanted them!...

'Hey… hey! You!...'

The ANBU turned to him, then bowed down again.

'Yes, Kazekage-sama?'

He huffed, looking at them. The snow fell quietly, making the temperature drop and make white puffs of clouds come from his mouth.

'Do you…' he asked, looking at them helplessly 'Do you know any games?'

They looked at themselves, then one took down the mask, smiling at him with lazy, scarred face.

'How about shougi?' He nodded. He didn't know what was it. But whatever worked fine. Anything that could occupy his mind right now. He went after ANBU.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato looked appropriately confused by the reaction, barely catching the scroll before it got damaged and stared at the redhead as he left the room. Once he was gone, however, he deposited the scroll on the table and smiled more gently at the older woman.

'…should I worry about him, Chiyo-sama?'

The elder woman gave him a taxing glare. In Daichi's state probably nothing would make him happy more than the caring hand of his 'friend' to be, but that wouldn't help him calm his head a bit. She closed her eyes and shrugged, then, after a moment of hesitation, added some joyful chuckle to that.

'Oh, he is fine, that's nothing serious. He's got air headed from the happiness that Gaara would be in peace soon and swallowed wrong pill, but it won't do him any harm. More than for him we should worry more about the sealing now.' she said and looked at him again. Then she smiled. 'Or maybe such brat as you can't really handle what he said he wanted to do here? What a shame, ho ho ho!...'

Minato grinned back at her.

'The only thing to worry here is that someone of your experience starts getting facts and memories confused. I hear it happens often when one reaches your age, Chiyo-sama. Especially on women from Suna that get tinier each year that goes past.' If it had been something related to his health, Chiyo wouldn't have brushed it aside so carelessly, so he probably shouldn't worry. It was better for him to get into this as fast as possible, as the actual preparing would more than likely longer than any of them would prefer.

He nodded at Kakashi once both sensei's had returned to the room and the jounin obediently closed the room, leaving them back in the soundproof meeting room.

'Let's go at it, old lady. I want to see what kind of things Suna can come up with.'

'At least we don't get more bratty with every year, as some grown up men from Konoha.' she shot back, smiling at him with good-heartening smile. He was whom he was, but it was hard not to like him. It was visible why Daichi was drawn to him for so long - that blond brat just never grew out of this charm he had.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Hinata was sitting next to the blond boy, not really touching him, but close enough that he knew himself silently being supported by her. The boy hadn't said anything since they had hidden in the cellar of the house, and as stubbornly curled on himself with his face hidden on his knees. She had never seen Naruto-kun cry before, not even when Kakashi-san had been on the hospital, and she wanted to say something to make him feel better, but boys always acted funny after crying, especially when girls were around. She turned her pale eyes towards her cousin, silently asking him what to do. He was older and a boy. Obviously he would know what to do with Naruto-kun in this state.

Neji looked down at the blond and his little cousin – it was a little uncomfortable situation for himself. He didn't really know what to do either – when he was little and crying, his father just left him alone in the room, no matter what was the reason. That's why he learned quick that if he wanted to be heard out, he had to stop crying first. So, maybe Naruto wanted to be left alone. But they were not his father and mother and friends acted differently from fathers and mothers, so… He coughed a bit in his hand.

'That man was really stupid.' he said and looked at his pants, swinging a little 'Such an obvious lie. I'm sure I saw someone with different chakra. Right, Hinata?'

Because really, if not a known ninja then whom that strange human could be if not the demon host himself? Naruto had a strange patched chakra too. And if not… then at least he could cheer him up for a moment.

The girl rewarded her cousin with a sweet, thankful smile.

'Brother Neji is right, I'm sure it's that person with weird chakra we saw the other day.'

'But I can't see him.' The blond said with a sniffle, finally pulling away from his knees just enough to wipe his nose with his sleeve. 'Why doesn't he want us to be friends?' he asked, his tone carrying an incredible amount of hurt for a child of such age.

Hinata started playing with her fingers, not knowing what to answer. Maybe it was because of the things they said about Naruto-kun, but… Naruto-kun was a very nice boy. Whatever everyone else said was a complete lie, and besides, her father has told her and her cousin to never tell the Hokage's son about those weird lies other kids made about Naruto-kun.

Neji looked at him helplessly. He also remembered as father told them to not repeat those weird things that were told around Konoha to the blond. But such questions couldn't go unanswered. He kicked a little stone, frowning lightly. Oh. That sounded good.

'Because he is stupid.' he said finally with confidence 'Mean people are always stupid. That's why we should defeat them and do things not the way they want us to.'

He looked at the blond, nodding to it. Yes, that was right. That had to be right. Why else should they defeat enemies? Enemies were mean after all.

'We don't have to listen to such a meanie. Let's search for him and play together.' he said. '…in secret.' He added quickly. It was Kazekage-sama after all.

'But… last time…' Naruto's eyes filled with tears again, and if Hinata and Neji hadn't been there, he would probably have burst into tears. Well, maybe if Hinata hadn't been there. She had already seen him cry once, and that was more than enough, even for the male pride of a boy closer to six than five. As it was, he just stubbornly bit his lip until he was sure he wouldn't start acting like a baby.

'…he hurt Gaara before. And daddy said it was my fault because… because it was my responsibility.' Why did that word feel so heavy? He barely understood what it meant 'I don't want Gaara to get hurt because of me again.'

Hinata continued playing with her fingers a few more moments, then started tugging at the laces on her jacket.

'Ka…Kazekage-sama said that you couldn't be friends with him, i-isn't that right?' she asked nervously, remaining in silence while Naruto nodded and gathering courage for what she meant to say next. '…but he didn't say anything about Hyuuga, right?'

Neji started as his cousin for a moment. Then a moment more. And a tad bit more. Then he smiled like a little sun. Hinata was so smart. He had reason to be proud to be the cousin of her!

'We could bring presents to them and get inside!' he said, looking excited at her, then at the blond 'Like…. Like this vase or… or… flowers! Nothing is as good as flower from Hyuuga 's mansion garden! Even Mr. Yamanaka says so!' And that meant something as Yamanaka was a known florist. 'Hinata, could you make three of those nice bouquets? We could bring it to them and maybe we can play with them with permission then!'

'Hinata-chan, you are great!' The blond said, giving her a quick, bone-crushing hug. The girl blushed scarlet and looked down, her bangs again covering her face, though there was a small, timid smile on her face, nodding quickly. She always felt the happiest when brother Neji or Naruto-kun praised her.

'Y-yes. I could…' there weren't many flowers left, because it was the middle of winter, but she had left several getting pressed from spring… she betted she could make some really nice arrangements from those. She could ask her aunt for help-

'But…I don't think he'll let us.' the blond said, his mood quickly becoming downcast again. 'He saw you two today with me. He won't want you to play with him because you are my best friends.' Because Neji was right, and the man really was mean. Really, really horrible and mean.

'It won't work.'

Hinata stared after her friend for a few seconds, then after a supreme effort, dared to lay a hand on the blond's shoulder.

'Maybe we can send him a secret message with the gifts, she said. I bet Gaara-sama would be happy even if it's a small note from you, Naruto-kun.'

Neji looked at them both, his smile slowly fading. That was right, Kazekage-sama saw them today with Naruto. And if he didn't like Naruto he might not approve of them, even if they were heirs of Hyuuga – adults approved only of adults after all. He crossed his hands, kicking dirt with his sandal yet again.

'Maybe he can go out to us if he sees who sent those and explain to Kazekage-sama that we will do no harm to him?...' he said, trying to find a reason. There had to be some solution, right?

The blond looked at his friends and finally smiled a little, giving Hinata a small push with his shoulder. He really loved his friends.

'I know... I`ll ask Kashi when he comes back.' he hadn't seen the jonin in the whole day, as his father needed him for some important mission, but he hoped to see him back soon. And if the jonin had helped him before and not told his father about the last time, maybe he would help him this time too.

Neji's smile widened again. Hyuuga was Hyuuga but they were only non ranked kids – and jonin – that was it. Kakashi always helped them – since he could remember. He nodded happily. Now it had to work. For sure.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Do you really need to sit there?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

It had taken Minato less than two hours to grab new scrolls, some of his designs and quickly curl in one corner, starting to make adjustments on what he had.

'If I sit in a chair I start slouching. And then my back aches.' The blond replied distractedly, a frown on his face as he analyzed the main seal. It had taken him most of that time to understand what had gone wrong from the original plan. Because as far as he saw it, it should have worked perfectly- and it hadn`t.

Everyone correctly assumed that the best moment to place the one tail within the unborn Gaara was about a month or so before the date when his birth should have occurred. The sack the baby was in, (the embryonic fluid filling it, more accurately) would be perfect to channel the chakra into the baby. A perfectly smooth transition. And even if there were any complications, an eight-month baby has a lot of chances of surviving, especially when both his parents were strong.

'Chiyo-sama… Did Karura-sama go into labor during the possession?'

The elder looked at him with a frown. Coming through that day was not a pretty memory, so it was not easy or pleasurable to fish out such things from it. Especially as it hasn't has happened yesterday. Not that anyone would be able to forget the scene that happened there. She remembered the petite blonde, screaming, cursing them, crying…

'Maybe.' she said finally, tapping the surface of clear scroll with the tip of the writing feather 'I can't really tell, she screamed all the time and there was so much blood everywhere… sand didn't exactly choose what to tear or not.'

She looked at Minato. What was he getting at?

'But why are you asking that? Does it really matter? She was a sacrifice and sand would squeeze there through still or moving muscles either way, you know how monsters work.'

'I just wondered how far into her pregnancy she was.' he replied calmly, looking down again at the almost tribal designs of the seals, even though he felt ill. There was nothing… nothing that said why the sand should have hurt her at all. As long as the baby itself hadn't felt threatened, or pained, as long as nothing had triggered the defense mechanism, nothing should have caused the sand to lash at her. Technically, Gaara could have been delivered perfectly through a careful C section. The only thing that made sense to him was that Karura had gone into labor early and the spasms had caused the sand to detect her body as hostile towards its new host, making it lash at her. From inside, oh, God… He could never let Daichi know this. Ever.

He had been stupid and selfish and sacrificed his wife for the sake of his village, and he might be able to live with that, but if he learnt there might have been a chance for her to survive… And knowing this would change nothing, except possibly cause Daichi a breakdown. Whatever happened was in the past and nothing they did now would change it, the only thing they needed to concentrate now was on helping Gaara.

'Shukaku was canalized through Karura-sama's chakra path and into Gaara, that`s why he doesn't have an outer seal…' he murmured to himself, blinking when he ran out of page and simply tossed the scroll aside, getting a new one. 'It could really work. If adjusted- if the seals can be used to boost chakra, they could also be used to decrease the flow…'

He rubbed his head nervously.

'It could work. I know it could. But how do we stop it from attacking while we do-'

'This one could work.' Minato turned, staring at his teacher. He had singled out a small, intricate seal he had practically doodled in a corner of a much larger one, as an afterthought and was tapping on it thoughtfully with a finger, expression grim.

'If you fix it and make it personal… You could add restraining seals, and it might work.'

'…those wouldn't be permanent.' he replied carefully, amazed that the sage had actually started participating actively in his idea.

'What do they need to be permanent for?' the older male said sourly. 'Place them in his clothing, they can easily be replaced whenever it's needed. It should keep the one-tail from getting excited over every little thing. You are complicating things unnecessarily.'

Minato frowned at the critique lightly, but made no comments.

'Wouldn't that also cause his own chakra paths to be affected as rebound?'

'If what you are planning to do will only work on the one-tail's chakra path, it won't matter. Tired or not won't put his life at risk, especially if there is a medic to keep him stable.'

'But if Gaara falls asleep?' the boy would be exhausted, obviously. And considering it would be the first time they activated the seals, the safer they were about it, the better.

'Have the old lady give him something that will keep him awake.' The toad sage concluded, pointing at the small woman with a thumb as he blew some smoke. Minato looked at the elder questioningly, silently asking if it would be possible.

The elder woman laughed out loud, almost letting go of inked feather.

'Of course I will, my medicaments for dreams and against dreaming are one of the best in whole Suna, you won't have the problem with that at all!' she said, answering back with her own thumb. My, they thought about everything, those brats! It was a pleasure working with such competent ninjas after seeing such degenerated seeds as Daichi or Yashamaru.

Minato smiled at the woman, glad that something of such importance could be mostly solved. Now, on regards of the seals…

'I think I can figure how to work the seals.' By tomorrow he would probably have a more or less definite version to show both Chiyo and Daichi. 'The issue here is how much of Gaara's blood we need to add to the ink, and if Kazekage-sama can take the poison.'

He remembered Daichi having mentioned he was immune to certain poisons, like most of Suna's children, as their families regularly gave them small dosages so they built them. And he had seen him poisoned by things that certainly would have killed a normal human, and yet survive. Chakra poisoning, however, was a completely different deal. 'Do you think he can?'

The elder looked at him, placing the feather near her wrinkled lips, deep in thought. Daichi went through some hardships, but his body was healing nicely and there was no other reason for it being weak than the weakness he placated on himself on his own. That could elongate the process of body adjusting to it, but if it was controlled by her…

Not to mention that if anything, the family of Sabakus was the best protected from poisons family in the whole Suna – she fed them by herself the poisons rarely anyone knew just in case if anyone could actually knew and used them. Not all were traceable or could be accustomed to bodies – some poisons still could've killed them all. But the trained body took the treatment much better than body that was not prepared for such. If anything, Daichi, being the last successor of his family was the best suited for taking in the unknown poison – she and Ebizo were too old for such experiments even if she could be bitten by poisonous snake and not feel the effects at all and young children of the saffron haired man were not trained enough – they were only kids after all.

Gaara was an exception. No poison hurt the beasts that were there before any poison could grow from the ground in a seed or be born from a fang of newborn animal.

'If the medic team will look at him properly, and I will make sure it will.' she said slowly, eyeing Minato like if she was waiting for acceptation of the idea 'Then there shouldn't be much of a problem. He will lie down for a few days, maybe weeks…'

She stopped, then looked at the scroll before her. He seals weren't especially big, but…

'I suggest they would be placed on the spine as it's the core of immunology system.' She said, eyeing the unique shapes 'But before that, the one small should be placed somewhere close, maybe the end of the backbone or his neck – to see how his body would react for warning shots.'

That sounded like a plan. She leaned back on the chair, observing the ceiling, still deep in thought.

'In that case we might avoid him dying if the body won't be able to handle the little bits of poison well.'

Not that she knew about it much. Minato went for the big step and was making it hard for everyone – it was even hard to think of how this would combine with blood, so thinking about the reactions of body was more than plain suspicions if not predictions of fortuneteller at the most.

'How about that, Hokage-sama?'

'That's a brilliant idea, as expected from the great lady Chiyo.' The Hokage said, smile widening. If nothing else, the worst threat to it would be infection and fever but those could be controlled by professional medics, and if Daichi already had one and they gave it some time to build an immunity, the other two would be easier to handle. As for the key ingredient…

'Any ideas as to how draw blood from Gaara-sama?'

The silence befell in the room. Yes. That was a real problem.

'Not that I know of any.' finally spoke Chiyo, leaving the ceiling alone and looking back at the group in the room. 'The sand just won't let us get close to him. The monster lets Daichi get impossibly close, this close-' she showed the inch like width '…but never till the first blood. That kid hasn't bled once in his life, not even at his birth. As far as I remember, the umbilical cord was made from dried sand that scattered quickly.'

'And there's no way to draw it from him?' asked Sarutobi, leaning on the table also. Chiyo shook her head. 'Not at all.'

'How about lightening jutsu?' Everyone turned around. The grey haired budged in a little chuckle, then lowered the book he was supposed to be reading, showing a quite focused eye.

'What are you talking about, Kakashi?' asked the Third. The grey-haired nin smiled, blushing a bit.

'Maa… if I remember well, the natures of chakra excel each other and sand, being made of earth could be always toned down with lightening chakra… isn't that right, sensei?'

Minato suddenly was starring at the younger boy with teary, shining eyes.

'…My student is made of awesome.'

Kakashi blushed harder, scratching the back of his neck with a loosened up move.

'I only remembered what you told me, sensei…' he said, laughing nervously 'That's what every student has to know, ha ha ha…'

'Like teacher like student. Brilliant idea, Kakashi.' added Sarutobi, making the teen laugh a little more nervously 'So, with this jutsu we can pierce through the defense and-'

'I don't think that's possible.' Everyone turned their heads in the room. Chiyo, despite the cheery atmosphere held much more grim facial features still.

'You don't know the hardness of that defense. The shots that pierce through a thick piece of iron don't go through millimeters of that.' She murmured, crossing her arms with a clouded expression 'And the sand is very quick – whirlwind–like quick. Shukaku has endless amount of chakra, he can do with it whatever he wants, so it's the matter of seconds, maybe bits of them.'

Everyone's faces fell down. Kakashi hid himself behind a book again with a disappointed expression. So, it seemed it was not a good idea after all.

'So, what should we do?' asked Jiraiya with a hard mimics

'Don't look at me, I have enough with these seals.' the blond said, quickly looking down to his scrolls and going back to working.

'I'm rethinking the whole `prodigy` part...' his sensei said, shaking his head.

'There's nothing that can be done then.' said Chiyo, shrugging the idea off.

'How about slowing the sand down?' asked the Third. Chiyo laughed out loud.

'And how do you want to do that, Hokage-sama?' she asked through the joyful cackles which didn't sound much as joyful as sardonic 'Hold onto it? Freeze it? That's impossible, we tried it many times-'

'Have you thought about wetting it?'

Chiyo quieted down. No… no. Actually, no. How could they? Water in Suna was too precious for everyone to just waste it on experiments that might not work. Every droplet that could not hit was a wasted droplet of something more valuable than gold and doing it on their fields which could use up the waste was first: impossible as Shukaku in rampage would just destroy everything and food was just as precious on those dry, merciless grounds as water and second: completely absurd. What kind of person would agree to experiment with a host that could in a second engulf in sand the thing that generations of families worked for their whole lives? Sarutobi smiled, getting out pipe from between his teeth and looking at the group.

'If the sand would get wetted down it would be a lot slower – and the getting the lightening to work is only a matter of seconds, especially with someone of your speed and technique, Minato.' he said, looking directly at the man. The nickname of 'Yellow Flash of Konoha' was not for laughs after all 'Just hold him down in the water somewhere out there in such season – the one who would be freezing would also help in getting the kid protected from the damage of lack of temperature-'

'What, you want to throw him in the lake?' asked Chiyo, looking at the old man. Sarutobi stopped, hesitating. Had he said something wrong? The woman started laughing like if she heard a good joke that never got old 'That's rich! Shukaku is not stupid nor is it weak – he won't fall for such a simple act as throwing the kid to the centre of the lake. The sand can f l y.'

'What? You must be joking.' said the Sarutobi, looking at the old woman with stunned expression, That only made Chiyo laugh more.

'That's right, it can fly! Up to the Moon and back, Shukaku knows how to use up his chakra and he does it well.' she said, chuckling. This was getting hopeless. Whatever they thought up was getting through bazillions of obstacles. Like it was expected – Shukaku was the absolute defense and the highest possible weapon a shinobi could handle and control – barely, but still 'Don't dare to dream it will forget to lift the kid up from the toss, the kid has never been wetted against his will in his life-'

'Eh? But I saw him being wet.'

It was the second time everyone turned toward the grey haired nin. This time the teen didn't even try to look like if he was reading the orange book.

'When we were in Suna three months ago, I saw it.' He said, looking at everyone. The most surprised expression was probably Chiyo's in this all. Funny how one didn't know his own yard 'I was supposed to go on a mission gave by Kazekage-sama himself and I accidentally went to the wrong bathroom… he was there.'

'Wet?' asked Chiyo, disbelieving her ears. He nodded.

'Yes. And against his will. He was practically covered in water, sitting in it, covered in bits of wet sand… but it wasn't pretty.' He remembered how shrill was the scream that he let out once the door were opened and how scary were the bits of sands flying in the air, forming a face of some kind of beats looking t him like if it wanted to bite his head off, or rather – eat him while. If it wasn't for Kazekage – who know what would have happened to him. He was so shocked his ninja senses didn't kick in like they should and he was a jonin 'The sand was very hostile and it tried to attack me, probably wanting to see my skull from inside out. The kid was actually looking like if it was guiding it by its own fear, he screamed like no ninja I ever heard.'

Chiyo laid the feather pencil down, looking at the scroll.

'Yes, in that case it is possible… if you have a good bathroom or a closed lake. I saw you had nice hot springs here, that could work.' she said in a murmur that could be a little too little for everyone to hear. She frowned, ageing by that act at least thirty years more. She was not suspecting Daichi to play with Gaara like that. Yes, she heard him say a few times he would be 'punished with a penalty equivalent to his crime' but she never suspected he traumatized the kid so much. This shouldn't be good for him if he acted like the teen said. And of course, it was because she knew how conserving of water Daichi was so she never connected flooding the bathroom for the sole aspect of making Gaara feel pain.

What could drive him to actually use this method? What's happened that he actually came up with the idea? Somehow, she doubted she wanted to know.

'But… Gaara would still be very hostile. I don't think we can alter his moods, he is only a kid. He won't get himself translated it's for his own good, especially if he reacts so hard already.'

'Then let's make him forget about it.' said Sarutobi. The old woman looked at him like if he went nuts.

'What are you talking about? You all know very well that you can't make suddenly forget about where he is unless you put him to sleep – which would be a very bad move here, or make a genjutsu – which, even if Gaara wouldn't notice, Shukaku would dispel in an instance-'

'-or use the hypnotizing jutsu. It's not a sleeping pill after all and the kid won't care nor remember anything, not driving the sand mad.' said the old man, sighing a loud cloud of smoke. It hanged in the air like a thick mist, helped with another pipe also 'Now the only problem will be holding the mad wetted raccoon on the leash of attention for so long that Minato would get through it and shed the blood. Who volunteers?' Nobody moved an inch.

'Great. I will.' he said and smiled at everyone. Then he turned to Jiraiya who seemed to be spacing out 'And you will help me. Any other ideas?'

'Wait-wait… Sarutobi-sensei…' Minato was back up and looking at the older man, expression hesitant 'I really can't ask you to interfere of it. I appreciate the help and the ideas, but-'

'Now, what are you saying, Minato.' said the other man, still holding a heart-warming smile 'It's a good idea to warm up the old bones and show you what REAL ninja can do. Don't take away all the fun.'

Minato stared first at the ex-Hokage and then at the small woman oh-ho-ho as she served herself another slice of cake- and silently wondered if age turned all ninja mad, or if he was just lucky enough to attract most of them. He couldn't help smiling, though. Somehow it felt better to know he would be counting with the Sandaime`s help.

'Well then… as for the seals…'

The meeting moves smoothly after that.


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Paper flowers

'Why do I have a bad feeling about this…?' Minato wondered outloud, seeing as his house was utterly silent when he knew for a fact there were three little kids inside, his own being loud enough all by himself to put sound nins to shame. The only logical answer was that they were plotting something.

'About what, Hokage-sama?' said Kakashi, peeking at him from the cover of his book. Yes, he was still reading it. No, he still had not enough of it.

'The silence. It's never good when Naruto is someplace and you can't hear him doing anything.' Like destroying private property or trying to pull out some new jutsu to give his father a heart attack. It had been a long day, but save for Daichi acting strangely –more than strangely, if the reports of his ANBU were to be taken as accurate- yet Minato was very satisfied. The people he had chosen to help him with this plan obviously had been not just the correct ones, but incomparable and no matter how crazy it had sounded at the beginning, even for himself, the idea seemed to take more and more of a realistic hue.

Tomorrow he would be meeting Daichi to let him know what they had decided and oversee with him the designs of the seals and how they would work. He barely could wait. But still- silence. Never good when his baby was involved on it.

'Should I search for him, Hokage-sama?' asked the teen, slowly taking out the headband from his covered eye, suggesting visibly what he was going to do. Now the silence started to worry him as well. Naruto never left him with anything but troubles when he was silent, he learned that long time ago.

'Don't give yourself a headache.' the man said, chuckling lightly. 'We did leave him with Hotaru-san. I'm just provably being paranoid…'

He found the Hyuuga female reading a book form the library while all three kids were spread in a circle near the fire, talking among themselves about something described as 'The Plan'. Maybe he wasn't being paranoid…

'Daddy!' his little blond was immediately up and running to give greet, making him smile and pick him up to give him a good squeeze. He had to milk it while it lasted, after all. Naruto was growing too fast and who knew when he would start being embarrassed by hugs.

He left Kakashi listening to something that sounded vaguely important that Neji's mother was saying and walked to both young Hyuugas.

'Hinata-sama, Neji-sama.' he nodded at the kids in greeting 'Thank you very for looking after my son again.'

'It's a great honor Hokage Namikaze Minato-sama.' said Neji as usual, bending till he made the right angle. He just had to use the whole title as he felt greatly shunned by Hokage's accomplishments and needed to respect them, like every Hyuuga did. He stopped adding 'The Great Yellow Flash of Konoha' some time ago, though. It made his tongue tangle too much and it was a very dishonorable picture – a stammering Hyuuga. 'I look forward to playing with Naruto-sama again.'

Hinata followed suit, only her reply was much softer than her cousins, though she didn't try to hide behind him at the Hokage's presence anymore. Naruto finally had enough and quickly climbed back down his father, though he remained close.

'Why were you gone all day today, daddy?'

'Well... we were really busy today… We had a meeting with Kazekage-sama.' Naruto's face fell immediately at the name, which provably meant he still was bitter against Daichi for what had happened. 'But we did well in the end. Kakashi-kun had a great idea as well.'

He looked around carefully.

'…and seeing as nothing is broken and no one has come to complain about you, I think the Hyuuga have, once again, completed the mission flawlessly. Yes, good things happened today.' He nodded to himself, then down at the kids. 'I think this calls for a small celebration. Would you like to go eat with us?'

'Um...' Hinata turned to her cousin, silently asking him if it would be all right to accept. 'Hotaru-san would be invited, as well, of course.' he added as incentive.

Neji gasped, looking at the blond with wide white eyes, almost like he was about to choke. Then he bended down even lower, excusing his departing and ran back to Hotaru who stood a few steps away, still talking to Kakashi.

'Mother! Mother!' he shouted with excitement, then he glued himself to her leg 'Hokage-sama says that we can dine with Hokage-sama and Naruto-sama and this is a great honor to eat with Hokage-sama and Naruto-sama and Hokage-sama says that you can eat with us all and I'm very hungry and I dreamed about finding a dollar in a fortune-cookie so it's probably a destiny-' he stopped, out of breath, then gasped, taking another and making the biggest puppy eyes one could see on Hyuuga kid e v e r 'Can we go? Pleeeaaaseee?...'

His mother looked down at him, surprised to see him get so excited over anything not related to training. Good thing Hizashi wasn't here to see this…

'Neji, calm down.' she admonished softly, a small frown on her face. 'I don't think we can, I'm not dressed appropriately-'

'Oh, that wouldn't be a problem, you look far too gorgeous for the occasion today, we're not eating at the expensive restaurant.' said Kakashi, smiling at her 'This would be a honor to the place's owner…'

'Mooom!' added Neji, clutching to her leg pleadingly 'I promise I will dust all yin yangs in the jewelry room for a week, pleaseee!...'

'Ah, well...' she blushed slightly, looking down at her son and sighing. '...I suppose there won`t be any harm... But make sure to thank Hokage-sama properly, Neji. As you said, it is a great honor to dine with him as his family.'

Neji looked at her for a moment, smiling like if all luck of the world dawned on him suddenly.

'You're the greatest mom on the world!' he said, hugging the leg with absolutely undignified affection and ran back to the Hokage, stopping in the middle of a bow already.

'This will be our greatest honor and we will be very pleased to be able to take part in taking part of parting… ' he stopped, looking at the floor unsure. Something was not completely right. '…dinner.' He said finally, not being able the solve the problem. Then he waited in a back-wrenching bow.

'That's all right, Neji-sama, the honor will be ours.' The Hokage said, sweat dropping lightly. Somehow being around Hyuugas always gave him a sympathy backache. He looked down when he realizes Naruto was tugging on his sleeve lightly. 'What?'

'We are going to Ichiraku's?' Minato sweat dropped lightly, placing a hand on his son's head and ruffling the blond hair lightly. 'Oh, baby, baby…. daddy will give you a very important piece of advice for your life. When you go out to eat with a lady joining the party-' he bowed lightly to Hinata, causing the girl to stagger and nearly pass out from the strength of her blush 'You make sure to go somewhere others can appreciate her beauty. Especially when you go out with not one but two very beautiful ladies.'

Naruto looked at Hinata for a few seconds, then back at him.

'So other people can see them and be jealous of us…?' Minato couldn't help chuckling. Maybe Naruto really was growing too fast. Jiraiya-sensei would be proud of such a question.

'…something like that, yes.'

Naruto and Neji shared a look for a moment before nodding- That made lots of sense.

'We are going somewhere fancy, then?'

'Exactly.'

'…can we go to Ichiraku's before coming back?'

Minato sighed.

Kakashi laughed heartily, going to the group and finally closing his book (not without remembering the right page, of course).

'I guess everyone is so eager that you prepared yourself already, right?' he said, smiling at the kids and then at Minato 'Shall we go, sensei?'

Minato ruffled his kid`s head one more time for the sheer feeling of it and nodded.

'Lead the way, Kakashi-kun.'

Kakashi smiled yet again. 'Follow me.' he said and pointed the finger to the ceiling, like if he wanted to point out who was the most important right now. Oh yeah. Finally a good expensive food for free paid by Hokage-sama. He deserved it for that 'servant' and 'studying scrolls' usage. Perfect.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Naruto had asked Hinata once how did she manage to walk so fast in a kimono. She didn't think it was that impressive- it wasn't exactly comfortable, but if needed she could train in it. Not that she would be crazy enough to do something like that. Kimonos were formal wear. Formal wear was used for formal occasions. Like meeting the Kazekage and his family. With her short, perfectly combed hair and dark purple kimono, Hinata looked just like an expensive little doll. That was common- with their fair skin and pale eyes, few Hyuugas didn't, especially the females. Unlike a doll, however, Hinata was very much alive. And very nervous.

'Brother N-Neji … Do you think this is a good idea?' she asked in a whisper.

Yesterday, when they had finally asked the jounin and he had suggested it, no one had been very enthusiastic, Naruto being the least of them. It had seemed like a better idea after a short speech about something about seeing 'underneath the underneath'. And after asking her father for permission, the man had looked surprised for a few seconds, before suggesting her to dress in her winter kimono, and then the idea had been great. Such a suggestion for Hiashi Hyuuga shouldn't be taken lightly, and Hinata knew that it was better than an affirmative- her father had been impressed with her. But now, standing in front of the mansion surrounded by scary-looking Sand ninja…

Neji gulped down the saliva, trying to look as proud and dignified as he could, through he couldn't help but feel his legs tremble a little. Maybe it was because the winter kimono he wore himself was not concealing as much of warmth as it should – that was probably it for sure – but those Sand ninjas everywhere looked a little more than scary – their tanned skin and sharp eyes were not leaving them for once. He clutched on the bouquet he held a little more, trying to not bring shame to the family – his father was walking just right behind him, so making a mistake just right here would be a shame he would never forget till the rest of his days.

And in front of Kazekage-sama! The man looked scary and he said he was a meanie (because he was) but he heard many great things about him and he respected his rank also. He couldn't just make himself embarrassed in front of Hokage-sama's and Kazekage-sama's family. That would be too much of a shame to bear. He'd have to commit hara-kiri. But he also couldn't abandon his plan now – it was solved far too deep and besides that – he already promised himself he would not disappoint Naruto, so there was no way back. Not when the main door to the dining room were right before his nose.

'At least it's not a bad idea.' he whispered back, trying to give her confidence, which he hadn't got himself. 'Remember to not glare at him. He is a friend of Hokage-sama's family after all, even if he is a meanie-'

'Who is a meanie, Neji?'

Neji jumped, looking back. His father looked at him with surprised stare.

'M… I… meanie?' he said, stuttering 'I-I didn't… or do you mean 'leanie'?' he said, trying to look like if he was not blushing which was kind of hard right in the spot 'Such a new cool word for a lean person…'

'Neji.' said Hizashi. Neji closed his mouth with a flinch 'Please, refrain from using such a vulgar language here. We're right before meeting very important people. Okay?'

He nodded.

'I'm sorry, father.' he murmured. Hizashi nodded and opened the door. Neji, despite standing still, he felt like if his legs were starting to weaken. The room… the room was h u g e. And the people in…

'Welcome in.' said Daichi with cold tone. He obviously was not very happy about all that.

Hinata startled at the man's presence, the silk paper from the dried flowers she kept in her hands creaking dangerously before she realized she was about to crush them.

'K-K-kazekage-sama…' she whispered, so softly than she could barely hear herself.

Daichi didn't move, though he turned his pupils to her, not even bothering to change the sour frown he held on his face. That girl. Hadn't he… Oh, but of course. Naruto's friend. The one who glared at him so rudely before. He turned his head to the other side, not answering the addressing. She had dishonored him. He could do the same in revenge.

Hinata made a small, whimper-like sound as he looked at her and if her uncle had been beside her and not behind, she would have immediately hidden behind him. When he looked away from her, however, her panic dulled over by a small flame of anger. Brother Neji was right. This man was a meanie. Dishonorable word or not. And it was dishonorable to treat guests so rudely. A Hyuuga would never do such a thing in their own house, no matter how disliked the guest might be…! She would have given her eyes to be anywhere else but here right now. She wanted to hide and run away but…

Naruto-kun had been so brave yesterday, screaming like that at the Kazekage, even without his father there… And he had trusted her and Neji to deliver the message and… and it had been her idea and it had been a good one, everyone said so, even Kakashi-san, and her father had been proud of her and had trusted her to represent the family and… and… and she wouldn't back down now! Or stutter! Not once! The girl took an almost exaggerated deep breath and bowed deeply, using her bangs to cover her eyes and keep herself from glaring angrily at the man.

'Ka… Kazekage-sama.' she started again, her voice still soft and unsure, but now easily hearable. 'My name is Hyuuga Hinata, in the name of the House of Hyuuga, we have brought some small gifts for your children, we hope you will do us the honor of accepting them.' And sure, what she said had been fast and there had barely been any pauses in the speech, but she had said it all by herself. She just hoped her uncle would tell her father of this...

Daichi looked at her again. Then he smiled – a small nice welcoming smile that didn't reach his freezing gaze at all.

'Oh, I'm sorry, you have said something?... It was so low I couldn't hear. Do forgive me, please, I don't feel very well lately.' He said, nodding to her. Impressive. Any normal Suna-nin, even from the high stated families would just move away into the shadow to mourn over the dishonor. She acted very maturely for her young age. Maybe he was mistaken about her. 'I'm very pleased to meet you at my visiting room for the time being and it's a charming act of yours you present yourself. Please, straighten up.'

He looked into her eyes. Surprise, surprise, she was glaring at him. What was new. Kids never liked him after all. He turned to the man who looked like father of hers or maybe the boy – or as well could be the father of both.

'We are under impression of that little act and we will obtain the gifts with pleasure. You should be proud of such admirable idea such a young… daughter of yours provided. She will be a good heiress.'

The man bowed down.

'I am Hizashi Hyuuga, Kazekage-sama and do forgive me, but she is not my daughter. Hinata is a daughter of my brother, Hiashi-san. But I'll repeat your words to my brother with deepest honor myself.'

'I am sorry for my mistake. Please, do.' he looked at the boy standing next to the girl. And who was he? He looked like her brother. He didn't recognize him in one bit. The boy bowed.

'Kazekage-sama.' He said in much lower but still boyish tone 'I am Hyuuga Neji, cousin of Hyuuga Hinata and son of Hyuuga Hizashi – it will be a great honor to meet you and be able to offer your family those small gifts we prepared for you.'

Daichi nodded.

'Very well. Please, take your seats. I'll accept them with pleasure.' Neji straightened up, sighing invisibly with relief. One obstacle down. Now, whole meeting before them… Daichi closed his eyes for a moment. Honorable talk, blah, blah. Why would those people want from him? He never made any acquaintances with Hyuuga and he didn't intend to. He had a bad night. Day and night. Visitation. Life. He opened his eyes and smiled at them again.

This will not end well. His nerves were more sure of this than he himself.

It had worked. It had worked- Hinata nearly staggered from relief, but just nodded and thanked the Kazekage, looking down at the bouquet she was carrying- there were three of them. One had an assortment of white and purple flowers, mostly purple irises are surrounded by lavender freesia, white asters and white pansies with purple accents, wrapped in white silk paper. The second had red spray roses, miniature carnations in shades of pink and white with a bit of greenery to make it stand out more, and it was wrapped in pale yellow paper.

The one she carried herself was an assortment of red mix of chinese roses, carnations, and red pansies without any other color to add to the bouquet- that was the special one. Naruto had explained her that it was important, because it was Gaara's favorite color. Now she would have to wait for spring to get more red flowers, but that didn't matter, as long as 'The Plan' worked.

The paper on it was orange and there was a very tiny drawing of a teddy`s face on the side, invisible unless you caught it in the right angle.

The saffron haired man leaned down over the table, looking at the beautifully wrapped gifts – three. So, probably one for him and two for his kids, as Gaara was not considered a son, rather as a nuance for the time being. But then – the blond said very clearly that he treated Gaara as a friend and that he hates him and the girl really seemed to be sharing the point of view with the little spawn of Minato's – so probably he was not going to get one. How rude.

He smiled at her tiredly. The meeting, how much dignified and beautiful it was, seemed to involve him in short matter. He didn't really have to play for long.

'Those are very beautiful. Did you do them yourself?' he asked politely, taking first bouquet from her hand and looking at it through the lights. It was a wonderful piece of ikebana, he wished Temari could do something like that. But with poor flora in the desert it was not possible to even practice. To each village its own ability, sadly. At least she knew how to water the cacti in the whole Suna.

'Yes, Kazekage-sama.' she said, her arms still wrapped around the special bouquet. 'With the help from Hotaru-san, Hizashi-san`s wife.'

He nodded, slowly laying the flowers down and taking another one. This was pink and white, the flowers he never saw in his life for once. Not that he had time to stop and admire the flowers when they withered so quickly. He looked at them and then sniffed it. A nicely accented smell. Such a professionalism at such age… Suna artists would be jealous.

'This one is a very admirable example of ikebana also. You're very skilled.' He murmured, slowly laying it down. He didn't have any vase with himself, what a pity. Maybe they wouldn't get crumpled too much for laying a few minutes like that 'For whom are those? I'll bring it to the addressed once will reach them.'

The girl looked at her cousin for a moment, and when he nodded at her, back at the adult.

'...these are for Gaara-sama.'

'Very well.' said the man and reached out for the last bouquet. This one was all red, almost like if it was a laugh at the color of his hair. But then, he knew that Gaara also had red hair. 'Then I assume those are for…' He hesitated a bit, then he smiled again. '…for my youngest. Also a very pretty concept. Do I smell the new variant of a lemon flower? Never heard of them being red also, I was informed they are also white… what a nice mistake indeed.'

For a second the heiress took a half step back, looking at her cousin, who gave her a barely perceptible look now, after which she let him take the bouquet.

'...those are for Gaara-sama.'

Daichi froze with hands reaching out for a bouquet. Then he looked at the man behind the kids, not changing the pose or the smile. Hizashi paled. What were those kids doing?

'That's good, I'm sure he will appreciate the lemon flowers much, he never had a chance to smell them. I will see after them first to see they were delivered to him.' Hizashi glanced at the bouquet. What? There were no lemon flowers included. And Hotaru didn't mention growing a new variant of lemon flowers lately or… at all.

'Hinata, what are you doing?' he whispered , leaning toward her and nudging her on the back 'Give Kazekage-sama the flowers, his son can't take them himself.'

Hinata looked at the older boy again, the kids not being there hadn't been the plan at all, and everything had been going so good. This man probably wouldn't give him the flowers at all and everything would be ruined, and if they found out what they had done…?

'Now, isn't that a nice surprise?' Minato was walking up the front house, carrying a wad of papers on his hands, with Baki following close by with several more papers, a wide, happy smile on his face. He stopped to bow lightly at the girl, then at her cousin and uncle. 'You are very lucky, Kazekage-sama. Hyuuga is one of the founding families in our village and one of the most respected clans we have. It is a great honor to have the heiress herself and her immediate family come over to pay their respects.'

The saffron haired man for a moment shrank in his seat, then straightened up with a skin two tones more pale than before. What was the blond doing here? Those papers were probably the result of previous meeting. Good gods, so good that Baki was here. He'd just throw something at him. Not that he didn't feel anger now. He turned to the three of the family again and stood up from the table, still smiling. Then, with one swift move he took the bouquet from the girls hands in a gesture that could be considered rude in the kindergarten. Both Hizashi and Neji looked at him with horror.

'Oh, really.' said the man, smiling nicely, though his eyes started to gleam with something that showed much less amusement than the shining teeth were supposed to say. 'It's really a honor such a highly respected clan came to give nice bouquets for my children… Gaara, especially. He will be so pleased to see lemon flowers.'

Then, without a ceremony, he took out one flower of the bouquet and tossed it at the table like if it was a card of poker.

'So tell me, which one is the lemon flower? This one?' He tossed another, different. 'This one?'

Next one, bigger.

' This one?'

Again the flower that was tossed out already at the beginning, all of them being impossibly red.

'Or this one?'

He tossed a palm of flowers now, carelessly, making them fall on the floor. Hizashi looked at him like if he was just murdering someone.

'Or maybe this one?'

The last statement was followed with the loud bang of whole bouquet against the counter, making the leaves fall everywhere along with petals. And yet, he still smiled sweetly. With that gravy, haunted look in his eyes.

'I'll tell you which one, Hyuuga Hinata.' He said, and unwrapped the paper, making a few quick seals for heating his palms. A moment later the paper started shining with letters made of invisibility ink 'This is your precious flower you wanted to smuggle to my disturbed kid. What's the meaning of it, I ask?' he asked with something akin to very amused laugh which sounded like if he was actually trying to imitate hyena without a hint of happiness. Inside, he was starting to get a nervous breakdown. 'Tell me!'

Hizashi stood in silence, petrified.

'It's not like that!...' started Neji, but instantly covered. Daichi stood up, looking at him like if he was about to have a fit. The paper in his hand has crumpled.

'So it's your doings, right? All your kids doings.' He muttered in a dark voice 'I am disappointed. Deeply!' The other man looked at him, pale. Then he bowed down.

'I'm very sorry for my children, Kazekage-sama-'

'Silence!' barked the saffron haired man, then turned to Minato, pointing at him with his finger

'You! You explain me the meaning of it! Take responsibility for your villagers!'

Minato didn't loom impressed or moved or horrified, just have the note curious look, as if he had no idea what it was, and once he understood, his façade blended into unimpressed one.

'If I remember well, Kazekage-sama, the last time Jiraiya-sensei read a note addressed to me form you, you weren't very happy about it. I don't think what you just did is fair. And it`s a pity you destroyed Hinata-sama and Hotaru-san's handiwork so carelessly.' he reached down to pick a rose and placed it on the hair of a Hinata so pale that probably would have fainted if Neji hadn't been holding her up, and smiled at her.

'Maybe it's a childish play but I don't like being cheated at by anyone.' said the other man, slowly letting his hand fall down and crossing both of his arms, looking at the Hyuuga's with pale gaze, and yet, absolutely not seeing them 'And in such case, I don't think I should be. We all know how serious is this situation.'

Hizashi shivered, feeling like if he was about to get hit and bowed even lower.

'But it's bouquet for Gaara and I said clearly: I do not wish anyone contacting him unless I allow you to. I hope that taught you a lesson, girl. You do not question a kage.' he said and stood up straight. 'I do not hold a grudge against Hyuuga but can't expect the same. Just keep your kids on shorter leash, Hyuuga Hizashi-san.'

Hizashi bowed deeper. Daichi tsked and threw the paper on the floor, passing Minato with a hateful glare and vanishing behind the doors without saying proper goodbyes.

The Hokage just sighed rubbing the back of his head for a moment, and muttering something to the Suna jounin, to which the man nodded and followed after the Kazekage. Then he turned and bowed apologetically to the older man.

'I'm very sorry, Hizashi-san. I'm afraid that, as usual, this is all my son's fault.'

'Oh no, not at all!' said the man, looking at him and crouching down to help the kids clear the flowers from the floor 'If I only knew what were they going to do- I'm deeply sorry…'

'I knew.' the Hokage said, placing a hand on the man's shoulder. 'I apologize- Believe it or not, it's important for some matters we are covering with Sandaime-sama and Jiraiya-sama. I'm very sorry Hyuuga had to get involved like this- I really didn't expect Kazekage-sama to react so strongly. I'll apologize to him as well.'

The man looked at him with pained stare. If he knew he was going to get involved like this, he wouldn't let the kids go here at the first place.

'I don't want to be the cause of severing alliances between Konoha and Suna…' he whispered, then stood up, laying the flowers on the table like if he just picked them up from the field 'What are we supposed to do now?... Kazekage-sama seemed to be very shaken by behavior of them…'

'Maybe deliver the flowers to other kids.' said Neji, quickly taking care of smaller leaves 'And could you please give the message to Gaara, it's very important to us-'

'Neji!' Hizashi looked at his son with horror. Neji instantly shut his mouth, cleaning the leaves in silence. He was going to be disinherited for saying that.

But if it meant that the mission would be completed, he wouldn't care about it. Not unless they would get home, at least.

'Not at all, please, don't think that!' The Hokage was still looking at the girl. Hinata still hadn't moved from her spot. 'And don't worry, Suna would never endanger an alliance with us over some kid's play- I will smooth thing out with Kazekage-sama. I will also go meet Hiashi-sama with Naruto and we both will apologize for this misunderstanding. Hinata-sama.'

The girl looked up at him, her eyes cautiously blank but brimming with tears. How she held them, he didn't know, but somehow, she managed, though she was shaking like a leaf and hadn't opened her mouth since.

'That really was a beautiful bouquet. I know it won't be the same, but do you think you could rearrange it a bit?' He smiled at her gently. She nodded wordlessly and started separating the flowers.

Neji looked at her in silence. His father was standing up, quite shaken, obviously not being able to get through what has suddenly happened, trying to regain his composure, but failing. He was probably going through problems of stained honor. Like them all. He slowly got out broken flowers from the pile from the whole ones and gave her them, one after another. After giving her third Chinese rose, he leaned over slightly and whispered: 'You were very brave. I even covered and you didn't. You're better than a boy.' And before his father could look at him he leaned back and picked another flower from the pile like if nothing has happened.

Hinata didn't reply, but her hand founds his and squeezed it so tightly it probably hurt him. After a second or two, however, she took a shaky breath and started arranging the bouquet back into order. Minato spent a few more minutes calming the branch house member and assuring him there wouldn't be any repercussions, and when the girl was finally done, he thanked her and Neji again for all their trouble. He really would have to go see the Hyuuga leader and make sure he smoothed things out before the Hyuuga council could get into the case. But first…

Taking the rearranged bouquet, now wrapped in the visible note, he followed the familiar presence back to the room Daichi was in, carefully depositing it on a desk before turning around and leaning back on the door, staring at the older man through a hardened gaze.

'It's nice to see that the great Kazekage-sama, not having enough with installing the fear of God in the hearts of his enemies now resorts to bullying little kids.' he said smoothly, as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. 'It really says a lot about his character.'

Daichi didn't even look up at him, going through the papers that was left by Baki. Yes, the same Baki he was helping him there back then. And now, when he calmed himself and commanded him to stay here with him, he just left, mumbling something unintelligible. To leave him alone in this room when he needed him the most – the only person who hadn't turned back on him yet! What was happening to people in this crazy village? If anything was a prediction then he'd be the next one to go mad. There was no one other left than himself to be poked in the eye by the fate itself.

'Did you come to talk about my character or something else?' he said, twirling one of those tiny red flowers that was left accidentally on his clothing after what he did. He felt guilty. He did. But if he let Minato see it he'd just probably be beaten through the weak point till he would bleed. Kages protected their people. And even if it was understandable he didn't have and didn't have to have any business with the clan of the village which never got interested with anyone in his own village – even himself – it still was beyond the point. He just had a fit like a psych, something completely unheard of in his position. Emotional training went over the window after mere fifteen years of kicking it in. How the hell did he want to live longer on that stool?

But what those kids did… and what he said… and how they looked at him… he didn't want to see how Minato looked at him now. He closed his eyes. Where was his peace of mind lately?

'I thought we had something more important to talk about than my issues of how to teach kids lessons of diplomacy in ninja world where their parents shouldn't even try to push them at. This is not a child's play and I'm not one of those people to play along. If it were for me, I'd wait at least to the moment she'd grow out of thinking she can pass around the orders of any elder before letting her speak at all, b u t…' he opened his eyes, looking blankly at him. '…my opinions and my rights doesn't matter here so let's just talk about the war that could happen in the oncoming future.'

'Pass what orders, Kazekage-sama?' he asked with feigned amiability. 'Did you ever speak with her before? Does she know anything about Gaara-sama besides his name? Obviously no one told her or she wouldn't have done it. Do you know why did Hizashi-san and his son wear those bandages on their foreheads?' he didn't wait for the man to answer, just continued. 'See, Hyuugas have this neat streak about separating main house from branch house, and branch house member get this funny little seal in their foreheads, and every time they do something the elders don't like, the seal gets activated and causes them seizures. Doesn't that sound fun? No? Right, I didn't think so either, I`m glad to see we still share the same sense of humor.'

He didn`t stop smiling, even though his voice alone could probably poison a rattler snake by tone alone.

'Now, I'm very sure traumatizing five-year-olds is considered therapeutic in Suna, but because you had to show a little girl what the Kazekage of Hidden Sand is really is capable of, now her uncle and cousin will probably be tortured in front of her to show her a lesson over something that isn't even her fault. And over what? Notes passed between little kids?'

'I don't see why should I care. The problem is that I have Jinchuuriki here and I stated the rules clearly and they ignored it.'

'They are only kids.'

'So what, does their age excuses them from their insubordination? Aren't the Hyuuga the founding clan of this village or something? Doesn't the fact they disobeyed the prime man of the Wind Country mean anything? Where the hell is your heart at, haven't you forgotten who are you supposed to be?'

The blond man frowned, giving him a dirty glare.

'Have you?' he shot back 'My heart is in the right place, right here.' He patted his left breast roughly 'But you shouldn't point your finger at me with what are you doing.'

The saffron haired man looked at him with the blank stare, then moved his head to the side, paling a bit. It wouldn't be noticeable, only if not the bad light in the room, making the faint, faint freckles standing out like nowhere before.

Suna nins surely lost their stance when they were not covered by the blazing sun of the desert.

Daichi slowly lowered his head, letting the papers lightly fall on his lap. Then he covered his eyes like if he had migraine coming, squeezing the little flower like if it was the only thing he could hold onto. What now?

He didn't like the way this conversation was going and if anything, the glare that was sent toward him made the area above his stomach hurt like hell. He didn't expect the man to look at him with anything prettier or warmer than camaraderie, but the disgusted look he was given felt worse than the worst poisons he had to swallow. He felt like crying. Why couldn't he grit his teeth and allow the girl to pass the damned note? There probably weren't codes to any enigma. She was so young…

'I'm… so sorry.' he said finally in a hushed tone. If he tried to talk any louder, he'd probably break. And he couldn't have his voice breaking, he had to have any dignity left or he'd just fall into pieces. It felt like not even a reason was holding him together anymore

(_what is holding you together, Daichi?)_

_(please, don't make me answer this_)

'You're right, I'm a complete asshole… do you think I could make the council not act on this?...'

Minato didn't say anything for a long while, just stared at the hunched man on the table- He would have to do something. Soon. Daichi might be physically, but emotionally, he was crumbling. The problem was he didn't want to hurry.

'…that depends on how rusty you have gotten about sucking up to nobles.' he said, his tone no longer aggressive, just carefully neutral.

The saffron haired man chuckled, not changing his position. Though the sound was very far from amusing one.

'I live in Suna, remember?' he said, and slowly let his hand fall down and look at Minato…

…'s feet as he just didn't feel strong enough to look at him in the eye. Not after what he just did. 'It may look like they're at my command but I constantly have to oil them up or they won't let me do anything.' He slowly let his gaze travel up, but when it hit the neck, he looked away at the window. 'Please, can we do this today? I won't be able to sleep at, the face of that girl won't let me sleep.'

Minato didn't think Hinata's face was the only thing that would be affecting the man's sleeping schedule, if his appearance and reactions were anything to go by. The Daichi he knew was a man that very rarely lost his cool and who had been practically raised for the role of leader of a village. Seeing him react in such a way was more than a little worrying, and even if part of him wanted to believe and gloat on the fact that it might as well be caused by the shifting balances in their relationship, the clinical part of his mind worried it might be something else, and that it might be dangerous for his friend's life. Even if nothing came out what he was trying to do, he still wanted Daichi in his life. Give up the last relationship he had would be more he could handle.

'I'm going right now, and I better hurry. You can follow my trail or ask someone; everyone in Konoha knows where Hyuuga manor is.' Picking up the bouquet again he approached the table, leaving it in front of the Kazekage carefully, still wrapped up in the message the kids had prepared. 'Don't be stupid and give this to your kid. It might cheer him up and keep him a little less railed up about being here.'

There wasn't anything else to add, but he still didn't move away. He stayed where he was, staring at the older nin without saying anything until he finally forced him to turn and look at him in the eye. '…You are really worrying me, Daichi.' he said softly. 'Please try to take more care of yourself.'

And he left.

_Please, take better care of yourself._ Ha, ha. He let out a humorless laugh, taking the tiny version of what the bouquet could've been – it wasn't half as impressive as the first version but it was still a charming thing to look at. Especially considering circumstances under which it was done. He could easily unwrap the message and read it, but Minato was right. He was deeply hurt when the letter he gave to the blond was read by the white haired sensei of his. And the last thing on the world which the younger redhead needed was more pain.

He smiled. How weird they thought so alike sometimes. He got up from the table, sniffing the nicely smelling decoration and went to Gaara's bedroom. The redheaded sat in the corner, curled into a fetal position, the sand hissing and sizzling above him, from the ceiling, from the walls. Once he stepped inside, it shot back at him, aiming at him with thousands sharp spits. If he wasn't a kage and so shaken like now, he'd probably jump in fear and hurt himself. But now he only froze, being gently touched by sharp dots of sands everywhere and let the sand slowly dissolve and fall down at his feet.

His poor, poor beast of a son.

He came closer. The redhead didn't move.

'Gaara.' He spoke calmly, watching the figure. The red haired kid slowly rose his head and looked at him with tired, but still haunted gaze 'I have something for you.'

Gaara didn't move. Usually this didn't mean anything beside another rule of punishment, but he seemed to be too tired to react to the latter. Like father, like son. The irony.

He slowly laid the bouquet near his feet. Green eyes watched it for a minute, maybe whole two. Then he slowly got up and picked up the flowers, sniffing it, looking at it with something so, _s o_ close to that childish awe, that he felt the pang of pain somewhere in his chest. He could look like an innocent child so well. Gaara smiled and looked at him.

'Thank you, father.'

He crouched down, ignoring the sudden sizzle of the sand as it scattered away from the flowers. It seemed that even Shukaku wanted to smell the flora he hadn't seen for ages as it ran around the petals and leaves but didn't make the slightest harm. Very animal-like.

'Don't thank me. It's the Hyuugas who gave you these.'

When he saw a frown and something that could mean recognition and lack of it in the same time, he smiled a little. He doubted that Gaara even could tell a Hyuuga from a normal person

'Here, there's also a little message for you.' He unwrapped the crumpled paper and gave it to the kid. The redhead slowly took the paper from him.

_Hi Gaara! I hope you and Teddy have been better and your dad wasn't too mean to you. I can't write much because the paper's too small, but the people who brought them are the ones I talked you about, Hyuuga Neji and Hinata, say hi to them if you can! I've been thinking about what we promised- I meant it. You are my friend and I will find a way for us to be together, believe me. I'm the __Yondaime Hokage's son and I keep my promises! Trust me, we'll meet again and then we will play. N.N._

The redhead read the message. Then again, with surprise. Then slowly, like a dawn on the desert, his face beamed with the most cheery smile he had ever saw at the kids face. He looked at him with those happy eyes. Unconsciously, he smiled back at him. He looked so sweet like that.

'It's from Naruto.' he spoke in quiet, happy whisper. He budged. Minato's brat? He frowned. But he didn't permit them to meet! So, that's why it was so protected by Hyuugas before his very own eyes… how sad that the redhead offered it to him freely now. He looked so sad.

He looked at the message, scanning it with his eyes for a few times an unconsciously reaching out his hand to lay it on the mass of scarlet hair to calm him down. Sand sizzled and started running through his fingers freely, but let him pet the red strands. It was so soft, like if Gaara was born yesterday. His skin didn't change at all. The power of the monster was tremendous. He smiled a little again, letting the hand with the message fall on his knee. Green eyes stared at him with bareness of a raw skinned animal – the lightest touch might cause the worst pain. He rubbed his hand through the hair again in a stroke. It didn't seem to affect the kid, but his muscles relaxed in those few tiny bits. He was still not turning from humanly touch. Good.

'Did you like the message?' he asked in a quiet, calm voice. The kid nodded hesitantly. 'Want to thank them yourself?'

This time the kid frowned, looking at him with confusion. He chuckled a bit. Yes, he went crazy. Konoha did this to all his people. Why not to him also?

'Come on. We will thank them ourselves.' he said, then he reached out for the kid he hadn't touched for six years.

And Gaara almost immediately fell into his arms, like if he always belonged there. It was strange, the softness of the body touching his and the strange feeling of a sand sticking to his skin also, running through his clothes and body like little ants, adding to the weight and closing his neck, palms and face in thick layers of mineral crust. So, that was the first level of skin defense Shukaku always provided for the redhead everywhere. He understood now how heavy and how secure it was at the same time. But what was most surprising was the fact that where their bodies connected the sand dissolved, letting him practically feel the little, quick beat of small heart against his own, bigger. It beat so fast.

His son…

He stroked guardedly the red hair again and gave back Gaara his message, adjusting himself to straight position and weight of heavy minerals. Then he calmly walked out of the room. Gaara didn't react, only clung to him like a baby he was, looking around with curiosity like the animal. He was not nervous at all. That was good too.

'We're going to run now, okay?' he said to him quietly. The kid looked back at him and nodded, laying his head under his chin. He closed his eyes, letting himself remember the moment. Then he spun into the run. To the Hyuugas.


	17. Chapter Seventeen: Gravity of love

Minato had teleported home with just enough time to yank Naruto off TV and speed up to the northern area of Konoha. Even so, they had barely made it on time. They probably wouldn't have had to hurry too much if Hinata hadn't been so shell shocked by what had happened, that after only a few feet away from the mansion, her uncle had wordlessly picked her up and carried her the rest of the way, with the girl lying on his hold as responsive as the doll she resembled so much.

'Hizashi-san!'

Minato stopped a few feet from the dark-haired male just as he was about to cross the gates to the Hyuuga compound, his son thrown over a shoulder in a way that might have been less dignified if it hadn't been because they were in such a hurry.

'Hizashi-san, I'm so glad I caught up with you…' Naruto was safely deposited in the floor, where he stared with wide, terrified eyes to the older boy and the girl, distractedly noticing that she had a pretty small rose on her hair and instantly knowing that whatever had happened was his fault. Something had gone wrong with 'The Plan' and… he knew the invisible ink would be a stupid idea! He told them so, but Kakashi had been so insisting, he told them that it was indeed such a stupid idea and now…

He took a step towards Neji to try and ask him what had happened, but Minato caught him by the hood of his jacket without even seeming aware of it, making his son look first at him, then again at the Hyuuga boy, a moment before lowering his eyes to the ground.

Neji looked back at Naruto, but he couldn't say anything. Laying on the shoulder of your own father you disappointed so much made this to one. He only looked at the blond and Hinata from time to time, trying to tell them by telepathy that it all will be all right… somehow. Not that he believed in that much, but he was the oldest and he had to stay cool in the group of kiddos. Hizashi looked at the Hokage with almost sick expression – the vulnerability has almost been printed to his face by the happening, then he bowed down the lowest he could to not make the kids fall down from his shoulders.

'Is there something I can do for you, Hokage-sama? I want to show again my deepest apologies for what has happened. This was by no means Hyuugas intention to make Kazekage-sama feel so unwell.'

Minato quickly waved his free hand.

'Oh, no, Hizashi-san, it was-'

'It was my fault.' Minato looked down at the little blond, who was still looking at the floor, surprised that he had spoken up. Not because he had, exactly, as much as the fact he had done it in such a soft tone.

'I made Hinata-chan and Neji help me, and it's all my fault I'll accept full responsibility for this.'

Naruto bowed down, actually executing the bow quite well – apparently, so much time with children such as Hyuuga caused manners to be rubbed off by contact even of savage of a child such as his and Kushina's son- but then the girl in Hizashi's arms finally seemed to come back to life, letting out a small sob.

'I-It's not Naruto-kun or brother's fault. I-it was my idea, uncle. I'm s-so sorry!'

'No!' shouted Neji, suddenly springing up on the other arm of the man, almost making him loose balance for once 'It's not your fault! It's mine! I said that Kazekage-sama is a meanie!'

'Neji!...' uttered the man in deep shock, looking at his own son. But the youngest male heir looked at him with hard, stubborn glare.

'I said that!' he repeated with the same tone 'My fault! Not Hinata-sama's!'

Hizashi looked at Minato, crestfallen. Obviously, he didn't know what to do. Finally, he bowed down in apologizing bow yet again.

'I'll take the responsibility of the kids on myself. There's no need to trouble your own son – I know how much trouble they all can cause…'

'Not 'they'! Me!'

'Neji!...' The last word was said in horrified, cornered tone, like if Hizashi was almost standing with back to the wall, waiting to be shot by enemy' army. Neji quieted down, tossing a desperate glance at the blond Hokage, then glared at his father. Why was he doing that? He didn't want anyone to suffer because of him!...

'That's not true!' he shouted, holding onto the long hair of his and tugging onto it 'It's all Kazekage-sama's fault! Because he is a meanie, meanie, meanie-!'

'Neji!'

'I'm not lying! He is the biggest meanie on the world, he is such a big meanie-'

'Who is the 'meanie'?'

Neji stopped abruptly. Then he turned around. A few feet away stood no one other but Sabaku no Daichi himself, covered in sand, with some strange red-haired kid in his arms. And he heard everything. Great. Now he did it. Like if they weren't in so much troubles already!...

'I… I'm sorry-!' he started, trying to bow down in the position he was in, but the man shut him down with one sharp glare and came closer. Neji whimpered.

'No, Hyuuga Neji.' he said in a perfect voice, even when it seemed that all he wanted to do was breathe properly as he was blushing from exhaustion. The sand probably weighted more than It looked like it did. 'And you, Hyuuga Hinata and Hizashi-san as well. It's me, who is sorry. I made a mistake.'

Hizashi looked at him from a bow, unsure. What was the man saying?... The man slowly nodded at him.

'Please, straighten up.'

He did.

'I want to express my deepest apology for what I did – I'm not myself lately. I've been through many hardships last times and it made me feel very unwell. But even by that I shouldn't have acted that way. I am very sorry.' he said, nodding. It was the most he could do. Kages didn't bow to anyone. 'Especially, when my youngest appreciated the gift so much. Isn't it right, Gaara?'

The redhead didn't move, staring at the blond under Daichi's feet in silence. Then, very slowly, he moved his gaze at the Hyuugas and showed the crumpled wrapping paper with the message.

'Thank you.' he said simply. The sand rustled, making different position on Daichi's skin, making him sway a little. It was not easy to stand like that when many kilos of earth decided to change balance just like that. Black eye has opened on his left cheek – just like that and blinked, looking at the Hyuugas. Then the smile which reached his chin and neck opened and closed, then both of them showed up on his knee, staring at Naruto.

The blond kid was acting more like himself and had started to protest loudly over Neji's excuses- he couldn't let him take the blame of something that was obviously their fault. Especially when people from the branch house did bad things something horrible happened to them, and either way, this was all his fault, because if he hadn't told that evil man that he hated him, maybe he wouldn't have done whatever he did to Hinata-chan and Neji- as if summoned by the thoughts the Kazekage himself had appeared - and really, at the worst moment he could have referring to the speech Neji was giving out - but that didn't matter. Because in his arms, partially covered in sand, he carried someone else.

'Gaara…!'

Great. Why Minato had to bring the blond too? Now Shukaku was also getting excited. Yet, he didn't move. He had no control over it and he could only trust that Gaara, who seemed to be oblivious to what the monster was doing, was controlling everything perfectly.

'I am very flattered that you made my son feel so happy in those hard times which he has to go through. I'm sure I won't forget about this good deed that Hyuuga did to us with no hidden intentions. Please, don't mention the incident to the main house. There's no need to sweat over my nerves. Hyuuga Hinata…' he turned to the girl, then nodded to her 'Could you please make another bouquet for Gaara? I destroyed such a masterpiece and I regret it well. You can add as much lemon flowers as you want to.'

Hinata had stilled again in her uncle's arms, the long sleeves of her kimono partially covering her face as she sniffed softly. She couldn't believe something had worked out so horribly badly, if her father did something to her uncle or Neji… As the Kazekage addressed her, she finally lowered her sleeves enough so she could peer at him cautiously, blinking at the shifting presence moving over him. She nearly activated her byakugan in instinct to try and decipher what that was, but that wasn't the time or the moment, and could be misinterpreted as an hostile move. She didn't know what had brought this change on a man that had acted so violently less than half an hour ago, but whatever it had been, it probably had to do with Naruto's father, so she wordlessly nodded, even though she still felt vulnerable.

Minato was surprised that the older man had been able to catch with them so fast, especially as he was carrying what seemed to be a very heavy load, if the marks he left in the snow were any indication to the actual weight he carried. Then again, if there was anything Sabaku no Daichi had going off for himself, that was brute strength. And maybe the sand helped, but if the giant gourd that was usually strapped to the little redhead's back was any indication, his youngest was following his steps. Even so, he wasn't just surprised he had appeared, he was shocked that he had actually brought his son with him- that he was actually touching him and letting that thing crawl all over him.

And speaking of things…

He caught his son before he could get too close to that thing possessing the little redhead. Naruto tried to keep moving for a second, but then laid still in his father's grip, staring at the redhead fixedly. If he hadn't yelled at the Kazekage just yesterday, he wouldn't have stayed so easily, but as it was, the least he wanted was to cause anyone else problems. His father stared at the Kazekage and without being able to help it, smiled at him.

'Thank you, Kazekage-sama.' was whispered in trembling voice, but there was a very hearable relief that could be spotted in the edge of it. Daichi looked as the man bowed down yet again – it seemed that all Hyuugas were just trained to bow down, their positions – even that little girl's before – were simply perfect. Like if they were brought to life from exercising book.

'We will stay in debt, you and Hokage-sama's as well…' he nodded again, shifting his youngster on his shoulder, making the sand change the position completely yet again – which made him take a tiny step back to hold his stance and opened his mouth to say something…

…but then he caught the smile with his eyes and the words died on his mouth. Not for longer than a second though.

'I will also…' he said, turning his head away but still staring at Minato. His heart skipped a beat and he felt just like many, many years ago when he just saw the blond smiling at him for no reason, and it made him feel warm inside…

He tore his gaze away, tanning the flush down and putting on his usual indifferent mask '…be in debt. Please, have a good evening, Hizashi-san. Don't forget to mention to your brother what I said about Hyuuga's heiress.'

The man bowed yet again in agreeing bow and slowly moved away with his back still bowed. His youngest also tried to do the same as him, but he couldn't do much in the position he was in. So he at least kept his eyes down. Good kids.

He sighed and hissed as the sand moved on him again, this time much more violently, grouping with all weight on one side, making him bend one knee under the weight. Now Gaara's attention was pinpointed on only one person. Let's guess who.

'Hi.' he said, waving at the little kid from above. The sand almost immediately imitated him, making a small paw, waving at the blond with synchronized motion. It would be even funny if it wasn't so horrifying – it meant that Shukaku was learning fast the methods to urge the kid closer. 'I'm back.'

Back. Very funny. His back for sure, he heard his spine cracking in this unbalanced weight. Gods forbid for letting him be 'back' to Konoha in future if the experiment would fail. He slowly turned to Minato, trying to make the sand fall on both sides, but it only rushed through him and stayed on the same spot, only at one point of his body. And it was quite unhappy he was trying to move it. He felt it by squeezing which was getting tighter and tighter now and Gaara didn't even seem to notice.

'We will be going back noOW!...' he said, gritting through his teeth. Shukaku didn't appreciate. Gaara looked at him with frown and the sand loosened over his arm. He sighed, standing in silence, wondering what to do. There was no way he was letting go of the kid on those grounds.

'Hi…' sky blue eyes kept moving from the redhead to his father, not knowing what he would be allowed to do and what would cause the man to get violent towards Gaara- but mostly feeling relieved nothing bad would happen to his friends or the adult that had gone with them. He looked up at his father, who was still smiling at the Kazekage in a way he didn't like at all. Because Minato only ever smiled at him and Kakashi like that.

'Daddy…'

Minato nodded lightly.

'Good morning, Gaara-sama.' Minato said, smiling at the little redhead. 'I'm glad to see you out of your room.'

'Mornin'' said Gaara, tearing his eyes from the younger blond and reaching his hand out to him. In an instant sand moved on it, wanting to jump from it at Minato – which was prevented only because Daichi moved away, making Gaara for a moment loose both blonds from his sight to look at them from the other side of his father's arms 'I'm not allowed to go out, but we came to say thanks.'

'Exactly, and now we would gladly be ba-ow, OW! Gaara!' The redhead looked at his father with a frown and glared at the sand. It loosened up again, moving a little, but not letting go of Kazekage for once.

Daichi slowly shook his head and looked at the both blonds. Black eye watched them greedily – one from his knee and second from his arm, gaping at the covered chest – for absolutely no logical reason. He really didn't want to say that. He lived through a lot of stress today. But it seemed he had no choice.

'Would you mind accompanying us back to the mansion?'

Minato's smile was instantly a lot more vicious as he narrowed his eyes at the sand- though unlike two nights ago, there was still no ill intent from it that he could get. And Naruto hadn't reacted either.

'We would be glad to.' he answered, letting go of his kid. '…though maybe Gaara-sama would like to walk on his own?' he gave Naruto a little encouraging push. The younger boy took a few steps going closer to the pair, but staring at the older man more warily than the sand itself.

'...Gaara.'

Wordlessly, he extended a hand.

The redhead looked at him, then at the snow. Daichi leaned down to make him stand on the ground but he suddenly clung to his neck like if he was about to put him on melting lava and the sand also moved from his knees to his hips and shoulders. It felt almost too painful to straighten up now. He smiled through his gritted teeth.

'Gaara, I can't stand like this. Don't you want to go to Naruto?' the redhead looked at him, then at Naruto. He tried to make one step on the ground, but when the snow crunched with a wet 'tap', he curled up, making the sand for a moment shape in something resembling a hissing cat just on the top of the saffron haired man back. Daichi closed his eyes. Then he sent his youngest the old, used glare.

'Gaara.' he said in a cold, grim tone. 'Get do-'

And the words died in his mouth, because sand suddenly got a grip around his neck, cutting the voice from him. A little more and he wouldn't be able to breathe. But it was tightening. The redhead looked at him with stubbornness, but there was no killing intention in his eyes. Only fear. But the sand didn't seem to think so.

'No.' he said quietly 'You take him up.'

Daichi looked at him, not knowing if to laugh or not. Not that he could now. Add Naruto to this weight? Not that he was weighting much, but that was at least twenty kilos more. His back would kill him for that if it wouldn't die first. The pleading in green eyes deepened, making something of puppy eyes out of his face.

'Please?' Daichi gritted his teeth. Now he remembered why he didn't ever touch him again. When the kid wanted something, sand tried to squeeze the promise out of him. And did it very well. He couldn't breathe.

Without a word he crouched down, showing Naruto his free arm. The sand sizzled happily, moving a little, but not much. He felt faint.

Minato nearly had a heart attack when the sand tried to strangle Daichi, but the Kazekage himself didn't seem very surprised so he somehow managed not to try to jump the thing. Was Daichi carrying the gourds contents on him? God. Naruto pulled back as if he had had a kunai on the end of it. No way he'd let that man carry him. No way he would ever even consider it have him touch him after all he had done, even if he was friends with his daddy. He looked at the sand with a frown, then stubbornly held his hand out for Gaara again.

'Gaara, tell your mom to get down him, she's hurting him. And it's just snow, you can eat it. If it doesn't hurt me, it won't hurt you.' He grabbed Gaara's sleeve and tugged lightly. 'It's ok, I promise.'

Gaara looked at him, intrigued.

'I can eat it?' he said, looking at the white surface, trying to touch it, but then curled up to the man again 'But it's cold!'

Daichi swayed dangerously. He really felt blue. At last, Gaara noticed. The sand slid down his back.

'Gods…' he murmured after a big wheeze. For a moment he felt like if he really were to go down just in the spot from aspsyhixiation 'I have enough of this… get down right now!'

The redhead covered, but didn't do anything, staring at him with big green eyes.

'But I like you hugging me…' he muttered quietly. Daichi groaned.

'And I don't like your sand suffocating me.' he said, kneeing in the sand. The kid immediately stuck to his neck. It felt almost alien when the sand covered the hands also and he felt uneasiness creeping at him.

'But mom only wanted to-' the redhead started. That was too much.

'Enough of this!' he howled and tossed the redhead down on the ground like a bag of potatoes. The sand followed almost in instance 'You have legs, walk on your own! I'm allowing you to talk to Naruto for all time being when we get back to the house, don't make a fuss over some frozen water!'

Naruto cried when his friend was unceremoniously thrown to the floor and immediately moved to help him, glaring daggers at the Kazekage- not that he could do much because his father immediately passed him to help the older man stabilize.

Gaara looked at him with deeply hurt stare, then grimaced like if he was about to cry, but stood up, clearing himself from snow quickly. The sand formed the gourd on his back in a few seconds, but it still stared at the blond near him_. _

'Daichi, are you all right?' Minato asked concernedly, helping the dark-haired redhead by an arm. 'I can't believe you were carrying all that- did you lose a bet with Maito or something…?' he said in a low voice.

God, he had to make Chiyo have a look at Daichi when they got back. He turned around, staring at the eyes on the gourd warningly. He hoped that whatever they managed to do with the seals, it caused the stupid badger a great deal of pain.

_It's the kid…_murmured mother in his head. Gaara turned toward him. Naruto… Without a word hugged the blond, staring at the blond man behind him like if he was afraid that the kid would be snatched away from him in any moment. The sand made a gurgling noise of laughter and silenced as the redhead slowly let go.

'I missed you.'

'I missed you too.' Naruto said absently, returning his attention to the redhead after a few seconds and pulling him back in a strong hug. 'I really missed you. Are you okay?'

The redhead squealed happily, feeling how Naruto crushed his ribs. The sand rustled nervously around them, feeling at unease at the sudden pressure, but if anything, Gaara just wanted to squeeze twice as hard. Now that the sand wouldn't want to help, the closer to the blond the better, but it seemed that _the brat wouldn't be very happy if he helped_. She slowly got back to the gourd, glancing at the blond from up there_. It felt almost like if it was near a very juicy treat_ and it had been tempted to taste it, but _not now, not yet_… maybe later, when the blond wouldn't suspect it… _maybe THIS will come out… yes…_

Gaara looked at Naruto, smiling. Was he okay? He looked him over himself. His clothes looked all right. A bit wet, but… He looked at the blond again.

'I'm cold.' He announced simply and hugged to him again. Naruto was a nice source of warmth on the surface now that father didn't want to carry him anymore. And besides, he was still soft and he liked how soft he was. 'You live in a strange place. I wish I could show it to teddy… but he stayed home. When will we play something?' he said, moving a bit, because father told they were going home. He had to listen to father. But then, the closer to home… he made another few steps, not letting go of Naruto, actually walking with him with his arms circled around his tummy and dragging him with him like that. 'Maybe we can play with teddy?'

'Of course it's cold, it's winter, silly,' The blond said with a little laugh, not seeming to mind the redhead clinging to him like a leech. If anything, Gaara needed it because he was from a place where it was always too hot, not to mention that his dad was a horrible person and he desperately needed to have at least one person be nice to him. And that person was Namikaze Naruto. Nodding to himself, he pushed Gaara away just long enough to shrug off his blue jacket and give it to the smaller boy.

'Here, put this on.' he said, knocking on the gourd a bit to get the thing off Gaara's back long enough to help him into it.

The sand easily came off, but instead of laying on a snow it stuck in a gourd form to Naruto's back, smiling at him and waving a little paw at him like Gaara did when he was sitting in Daichi's arms just a few minutes ago. Gaara took the jacket and frowned. It was warm, but now he had no jacket…

'Take it.' He said simple and tossed half of the jacket at the blond, wearing only a half of it and circling the other's waist with his hand. The sand sizzled and moved away from Naruto's back, allowing him to wear it, and, being at such position, it moved in a small circle. After a moment of indecisiveness it changed into gourd again and stickered to both of their back together, making a big grin, gaping at the kages who walked in front of the black stare with amusement.

'_Now I have two kids. Yay.'_ It seemed to be saying. At least that's what Daichi heard. But maybe he was just getting a little too tired…

Daichi breathed on the cold air, looking after them as Gaara spun into babble, dragging Naruto forward. He forgot to tell him to keep close to him. Sometimes he had to repeat so many obvious things again and again…

He slowly got up, tearing out his arm from Minato's grasp. It burned when the blond touched him, making him want to be touched and making him want to touch in revenge, but he couldn't do any of that. And in this freezing atmosphere any kind of heat was… much more… electrifying. He breathed again, puffing the cloud of white mist through his mouth. Never too much oxygen.

Darn it, why the freaking feeling had to come to him now. It was all because he hadn't seen him for so long. His body was beginning to wake from the asexual state he put it in after Karura's death. He cursed under his breath.

Just now. Perfect. Simply perfect. All he needed was starting to have wet teenagerish dreams. Chiyo would die laughing. He looked at the blond with a little annoyance.

The younger man didn't look too surprised about the Kazekage's reaction, but he still smiled warmly at him. If Daichi had any idea of the way he had stared at him a moment ago, he'd probably kill himself. But at least he had done the right thing and none of his precious shinobi would be unfairly punished a bunch of old bastards with too much time on their hands.

'Of course I'm all right.' he said, dusting his knees from the snow and following the kids 'If the brat can carry this so can I – I'm not an old wreck because I had a one small tire of the heart.'

'No one would suggest such a thing, Kazekage-sama.' he said, lacing his hands behind his back. 'But either way, it's a long way from your residence to here. And running in the snow is never easy.'

When it was deep, the only thing you could really do was use chakra to go over it. He looked back at the kids when he heard Naruto made an odd sound- the little blond had once made a similar sound when he had stepped on a slug barefoot. His heart nearly stopped when he realized the thing was crawling on top of Naruto.

'Baby… baby, please don't do that again…' The Hokage said in a small voice, suddenly looking like if he would faint from one moment to the other.

'But I'm not cold, really!' The little blond said, frowning at his father. Why shouldn't he give Gaara his jacket? He didn't need it that badly. And this was kind of fun… He had accidentally made a small sound of disgust as the gourd formed on his back, altering his equilibrium but not much- the large thing was oddly light. The problem was the way it made him feel, sticking to him like that-

'…okay.' the Hokage answered in the same silly, kind of high voice, still staring wide eyed at the kids walking like some sort of creature out of a nightmare.

'Daddy…?'

'Yes, Naru.' Minato said, remembering he needed to breathe to produce words.

'Can Gaara come play?'

Minato started reconsidering the need to breathe.

'…later. I'm afraid you will be grounded for a few days.'

'Whaaat?' Naruto suddenly turned around, making the pair almost fall on the snow. 'What for?'

'You need to ask?' he pointed to the Hyuuga manor, frowning at the little blond and causing Naruto to flinch.

'But… nothing bad happened…' he tried to protest, expression pleading. Minato abstained from telling him that puppy eyes worked better on him when you were a redhead with a nice rack.

'Something very bad could have happened if Kazekage-sama hadn't been gracious enough to speak up in our favor, Naruto. You are grounded and won't get out of the house or meet your friends for at least a week.'

Naruto`s expression fell.

'...we`ll think about afterwards.'

Afterwards… Daichi tossed a glance to Minato. He didn't really think about afterwards yet. When – and if – Gaara would be a 'normal boy'. All depended on how 'normal' he would be. But if he would be just like everyone else without this sand crawling on him nonstop…

He looked at the redhead. He looked as crestfallen as the blond. He obviously wanted to play, but he couldn't allow that. Now, when he was watching them, he knew he could react to any harm the sand would start doing. But at any other chance… Gaara was still forbidden to touch the little Minato junior. He wouldn't survive Minato's wrath and despair over any kind of hurt, much less his death. He couldn't allow anything like that to happen. Even if that stubborn look was there…

He frowned, shaking his head a little. He couldn't think like that… about her. She was not here. This kid was something else. Minato's son. His alone now. Now…

He scrunched even more at the expression. He couldn't accept the kid. He simply couldn't. Not with those traits. Not at all. How could he? It was a living proof he was kicked out of the race. A living sign of the fact that the man spazzing about his kid's safety near him was caring much more about everything else around him than him alone. He absent mindedly stroked the place where the blond touched him when he dragged him into the room yesterday. It still was possible to feel it, like a faint printing… it was so warm… So warm…

But it was…

He glanced at the blond who continued to walk with Gaara under one jacket and the bottle of sand smiling at them lazily, happily, mockingly. It was so nice to know he counted less than this kid's sneeze. Once he would start doing that Minato would probably be pampering him to no end.

He looked away. He was not planning to stay over for a w e e k. He had one pill left. He would have to start not sleeping after that. And what about those seals that were supposed to be placed on his body? He knew nothing about them as he was switched off the meeting, but he knew that he will have to stay under medical care at least for a few hours to not see any special effects. Not like if his body would have any, he was so immune to liquidated harm that it would be strange if he even felt it. The problem was with the price his body would have to pay. Seals always came with price or conditions. That was not a happy information. Never.

He looked at the kids again. But if it was worth it… in any way…

…then there was no discussion. He said he will do it, right? So he will.

'Naruto.'

'What.' The blond replied flatly, not even looking up from the spot.

'Aren't you forgetting something else?'

That caused him to look up at his father in surprise.

'Like what…?' Minato inclined his head lightly towards the shorter kage. Naruto stared at the pair quizzically for several seconds before an expression of understanding finally crossed his features- immediately followed by a fierce glare. The infamous 'I won't do it and you can't make me.' glare. Minato stopped smiling and wordlessly pointed to the oldest redhead.

'Thank you very much for your help, Kazekage-sama.' The blond grit out after several seconds of staring contest with his father.

The saffron haired man looked at him without any kind of happiness in his eyes also, but stopped himself from commenting that. He made enough of a ruckus today for behaving not like he should.

'That's my duty and right to do that.' he stated simply, nodding at the kid with a little frown. 'But next time you want to send a message to my son just do that openly. I like such matters to be stated clearly.'

The blond mumbled a `Yes, Kazekage-sama` under his breath and continued conversing with Gaara in a slightly more depressed fashion, though he certainly wasn't giving up on the opportunity to talk to the other openly. When Daichi turned back at him, Minato was smiling at him in the same warm way as before.

The man blushed and quickly turned his head away, imitating a cough. It was so unfair for Minato to do such expressions. Maybe he shouldn't have apologized to anyone…

(But it was so nice…)

(And he had this dimple on his cheek…)

(He couldn't be doing that on purpose, could he?)

(could he?)

Then he noticed he stood, with his hand near his mouth, gaping at the snow as he continued coughing. He cleared his throat one more time and looked at the blond again, but this time very guardedly, to have a possibility to move away quickly. Gods, he was acting like if he was ten years old.

'Shall we go back?' he muttered finally. Good, his voice didn't betray him. He trained it long for such strange occasions.

'Yes, we should provably hurry,' the blond said, finally looking away and to the kids, who were still thankfully whole. 'I figured out some good designs and we have a good plan running. We just need your opinions and the matter and smooth out some last details.'

The blond smiled to himself.

'This will be an entertaining week.'


	18. Chapter Eighteen: Time is running out

When the group reached the house the kids have been very reluctant to let go. Only after the promise of 'afterwards' at least Gaara has calmed down and went to his room with much more steady humor than before. The sand clung to the blond a little, but Gaara simply made it let go of him and crawl back after him, even if the black eye was the last thing that could be seen in the crack of the door. Daichi let go of a held breath. It went quite well for taking out a nervous kid in the space full of frozen water out of sudden. But it was not over yet.

After locking the children in different places yet again, they moved again on the freezing water (which made the saffron haired man curse quietly as he had felt too much of a cold lately) and re-enter the room from which he had been thrown out before. It was the safest to talk it out in the soundproofed place. For a moment he feared that he would have to face the blond alone, but he breathed out the air he held in his lungs when he saw the toad sage there. That was good. And gran Chiyo was there too. That was less good. Not like if he could anything about it.

Slowly, he took his old seat, without removing any of his clothes. Maybe Konohans could just get in and remove their coats, but for him it was still too much of a shock to body to just chill it like that. He had to wait for it to regain the warmth.

'Hello, Daichi.' said suddenly the woman on his left 'Slept well?'

He looked at her chuckling form and much more serious gaze. He snorted, looking away from her.

'Well enough to hear what you decided to come up to without my presence yesterday.' he said in a little scathing manner and looked at the white haired man. Oh, he remembered him so well from academy. He never liked him much. 'So, what have you all come up to?'

The sage returned the glance. He also remembered him... and he never liked the way he looked at Minato. It always reminded him of a spoilt little kid staring at an especially popular toy, with an expression that screamed 'I want that one.' It might have been all his years of 'research' that put those ideas on his head, but for the longest time he had actually feared his student would end up kidnapped or raped or something worse- Sabaku was, after all older, stronger, a ninja from the Sand and practically what could be considered Suna royalty to boot.

Thankfully that had never happened, but he still disliked the brat in general, and couldn't even phantom why would Minato want to pursue a friendship with someone like this. The man hardly looked like anyone someone on their right mind would spend their time willingly with. The again… Being in a team for so long did build strong ties.

Minato also took a seat, pushing a few papers in the Kazekage's direction, containing the final designs he had come up with.

'These are the seals I mentioned. Chiyo-sama thinks, and we all agreed, that it should be placed in the base of your neck for a higher absorption rate of the poison in the host's blood. The best thing to do will be to make the initial one and wait it up a bit so you can built an immunity before doing the others…' Leaning, he pushed some papers out of the way. 'And I created a set of gates to work with. The first one is sent to automatically flare and activate the other two whenever Shukaku reacts in bloodlust.' He showed a small, fairly simple sigil surrounded by tiny sets of sutra. 'The second is activated by hand seals and start forcing restrains on the bijuu's chakra system. The third is an additive to the second and needs to be activated through blood, and it basically does the same, but much more strongly.'

He smiled at the older man.

'Sensei also suggested to add partial restraining seals to Gaara-sama's clothing and made this.' He showed him the design for a chakra-suppressing seal that had been modified to a low potency 'You said Shukaku speaks to Gaara in his mind… This should keep a little more quiet. They need to be constantly replaced, though, but your shinobi should be able to produce them without too much of a problem. How does that sound?'

The saffron haired man slowly looked through the seals. They were never his specialty, not in young years, not now – even if he mastered them to degree of sealing a monster inside of a newborn. He couldn't argue with what smart people thought up there and especially not such person as genius of seals – Minato himself. He slowly laid them down, looking at the design. They looked so complicated he wondered how long it would take to draw them all. He smiled lightly.

'I will have whole coloring book on my body.'

'Back.' added Chiyo sweetly, eating who knows which slice of this awfully sweet almond cake 'Don't worry, Daichi, we won't let you forget how funny it is. I personally want you to come to me and Ebizo to let us play dots on it. I bet it will be fun, ho ho ho!'

Daichi frowned ever so lightly, ignoring that comment.

'This sure look like a good portion of seal.' He stated guardedly. Chiyo continued to laugh.

'And it's an awful portion of poison too! I bet you will be laying unconscious for months!' He glared at her, but she didn't look back at him. Stupid jokes… she knew very well he couldn't do that.

'I think it sounds good, but possibly there's some 'but' here, right?'

'You control the seals on Gaara and I control the seals on you.' the blond said immediately. It was something he had already explained to the old woman, but he doubted she would have told Daichi.

Daichi looked at the blond. And looked. And looked. The wind blew behind the window and he still looked. Chiyo didn't like the way he looked at him, but even if, he still looked at him. The spoon of elder woman quietly clanked on the plate. If it wasn't for that his fingers go paralyzed, he'd probably let go of the paper he was holding.

'…what?' he said finally '…is that supposed to mean?' he added after a moment.

'It means that if for some reason Suna was ever pressured into attacking Konoha, Konoha has the means to render all these seals useless.' Minato waved his hand lightly, as if saying it was unimportant. 'Kazekage-sama, don't look at me like that, please. Ask Chiyo-sama and she will explain you what each line means, but it's no more and no less. If I deactivate the seals, they will simply cease to work and Gaara-sama will go back to the state he is in currently. It won't affect you or him in any way.'

The man frowned with a grimace that indeed was not looking very pretty. He turned to the elder woman, waiting for explanations. Chiyo continued eating her cake like if Minato didn't say anything.

'It's as he said.' she stated simply, not even looking at him 'That's the condition Konoha set for us to give us help. Nothing is free on this world, Kazekage-sama.'

He looked at her, wanting to protest, say it was so easy for her to say as she lived under a rock and simply didn't care for the rest of the village and that it was a scandal, a sabotage, that it was not supposed to look like that...

…but he said nothing.

For some reason he felt a little disappointed at the fact it came out so… cold blooded. He was not expecting free favors or anything like that. But it seemed that it was not even a friendly help. Just a contract. He looked at the seals again. Of course he knew it wouldn't be anything less. But it still hurt. A little. Tiny little. But still.

'I understand.' he uttered finally with a frown. Words grew in his mouth for a few inches. It was suddenly harder to speak them out. Maybe he was getting that infamous cold of cold countries?

'Oh, stop pouting.' the Hokage said suddenly, causing his teacher to rise his eyebrows high- That was pouting in Sabakuese? Funny, to him it looked like if he were wishing someone would dump acid on them, but again, Minato probably knew the older brat better than he did. 'Even Sandaime-sama has agreed to help in something that virtually brings us no benefits other than helping an allied nation. And we are doing this behind the backs of our council, the least I can do is make sure this new control won't be used against us.'

He frowned lightly at the older man, crossing his eyes at him.

'You wouldn't have done any different in my position and you know it, so stop looking like if I stabbed you in the back.'

Why did Daichi always have to take things so personally?

The redhead hunched over the table, suddenly feeling like a piece of stone. A very sandlike hard stone. Why did the damned blond had to hit the bull's eye in front of EVERYONE? True, there were only two people beside him, but if he knew gran Chiyo, she would simply add it to the list of teasing. And he didn't like being teased by her at all. He slowly produced a half assed smile and looked at the blond, wanting to just take off his only winter shoes off his feet and throw them at his head.

'I understand it pretty well. What I don't understand is why are you telling me this? I am grateful.' And boot to the head.

The blond just rolled his eyes and made a gesture as if to say 'suit yourself', not pressing the issue. If Daichi wanted to be childish, he could do it all by himself.

'Besides that…' Minato started counting with his fingers 'We still haven't desired on the measure, but the poison in the blood will mess up your own chakra for a few days. It should clear up soon enough, but we need to see how you react to the first one to be sure… I worry the use of the seals will burn out your chakra system from forcing it too much, but that much, I think I could fix with an additional seal to help even out the force… and… chakra poisoning hurts like fuck.'

And boy, did he have speaking ground on that matter.

'To avoid problems with your bloodstream, you can't smoke, drink and if you are taking any medication, you will have to stop until the tattoos have been correctly absorbed in the body…'

Daichi listened to it still with a smile plastered to his face. But he felt his eye getting a nervous tic. He felt like if he was lectured by teacher in genin's academy. Of course he knew that chakra poisoning hurt – not that he tried it personally ever, but he knew basically what was it doing – poisoning every part of your body as chakra flew through every organ in the body to make it work. He'd probably get paralyzed for first few minutes until he will be able to move again, adjusting to pain and strain.

And the second one also. The blond talked like if he ever smoke or drank daily. He was not allowed to torture his heart too much lately so he was allowed them only from time to time. Not that he did. Cigars from the Tsuchikage still laid forgotten somewhere in forgotten shelf for forgotten things and his liquors has been untouched since the happy night where he got slap to the head – directed wordly by the blond himself. The latter seemed to be worse.

'Not even sleeping pills?' he muttered with humor, even if it was asked half-seriously. But he knew that even sleeping pills. No medication meant no medication. It would be probably a painful day and night. Maybe he'd finally… count all the stars on the heaven. Or something. He had no idea what he will do. But he knew it had to be long, boring and completely occupying or he'd just get too tired from feeling nonstopping ebbing pain from everywhere.

'Nothing that would alter your bloodstream, Kazekage-sama. I would have added coffee to the list, but you already know you can't have any.'

'Ah, of course.' said the man, smiling at him still 'So probably that means no eating and drinking too.' Because that started to sound ridiculous. Nothing that would alter the bloodstream? Minato had the very unique way of saying things. Everything altered bloodstream. Every portion of fat or sugar. He wanted to make him starve for that day? 'Can I at least breathe?'

'As little as possible, for the sake of us all.' the blond said with a sweet little smile.

'I will try my best to die.' said the man with sparkling smile. The air was getting more and more sparkly, everything was getting a very nice color of rainbow and the Armageddon was starting in five minutes. Because he really, really was starting to get ready to get on using his fists. Not that he wanted to kill the gorgeous blond. But his frustration was starting to play tricks on him. Very, very bad tricks. Like now.

'…feel anything worsening communicate immediately, every sign could be the beginning of the worse state…' said gran Chiyo and he understood that he didn't understand what was she talking about. Because he was too busy just hiding his frustration behind a smile.

'I understand, Chiyo-sama.' he spoke sweetly, not even tossing her a mere glance. If he acted like always, nobody could notice. 'But I doubt that will be needed.'

'I doubt it won't be needed.' Shot back the woman. That kid always thought he knew better. 'We shall start shortly after we get winded up around Gaara.'

That caught the man's attention. He finally turned his gaze at her. Great. So she had some authorities after all.

'What do you need Gaara for?' he asked, frowning. She rolled her eyes. Gods. Daichi could be so dense sometimes.

'We need his blood to be injected into the seals. Or it won't work properly.' she said and tossed the scroll on the table 'You don't want to get just useless print for playing dots on your back, right? We decided that our whole group, which means you and us will be baiting Gaara to get his blood. You stand as defense, maybe lure him near the water, after hypnotizing him Hokage-sama will use lightening jutsu…' she droned on and on, and the longer she talked the less he heard. He just nodded, knowing that she had it all written for him on the scroll she was reading it from and looked at Minato with glazed over stare. He was too busy not looking at him, so he could.

In this winter light his hair had color that seemed to be just perfect to store it as paint and use to coloring most beautiful Suna sculptures.

…beautiful…

A paper ball bounced off his head. Minato blinked and turned to stare at his sensei.

'My apologies, Kazekage-sama.' the sennin said, looking at the other with wide eyes. 'You were staring at my student so fixedly I thought he had put you under some genjutsu and tried to break it without causing too much damage…' What the hell. He thought the man had learned his place after murdering his wife, but noo… One visit to Suna and he was back to staring at Minato like if he wondered how many licks would it take to get to the center of the tootsie roll.

For a moment, Daichi just sat still, looking at the sannin with surprised stare. Then, he slowly took the paper and unrolled it, writing something on it and rolling it up again just to lay it down in front of him. Just like that. Chiyo looked at him, but he didn't show the contents to her. He only turned to the sage with polite, bored expression and hid his mouth behind entwined palms. Stupid sage!... He didn't know anything and he butted in!... But it was good in some way because he was starting to drift away far too much.

'I'm sorry, I just had a nervous day and it seems it's taking its toll on me.' He said and leaned back on the chair 'I started wondering about how many things will have to be delayed thanks to Hokage-sama and I got carried away with rebuilding my schedule. My apologies.'

'So I guess you didn't hear what I said after all.' said Chiyo, looking at him with a frown. She obviously caught on the matter and was very unhappy. That was a bad move. He shouldn't stare like that at the important meeting.

'I said I'm a little tired.' Chiyo rolled her eyes. Tired. Ooof course.

'It doesn't matter, I wrote it all down anyway… just be sure to read it before we start.' He nodded, then poked the ball, making it roll an inch.

'Don't worry about it.' Another poke. Another roll. 'And when do we start?'

Minato frowned at his teacher, the sage staring back at him innocently. Finally, he shook his head.

'I wouldn't do such a thing to Kazekage-sama.' The younger man said, taking a piece of paper and starting to work the balancing sigils he had mentioned before. 'Everyone knows he is like a brother to me.'

And maybe that was a bit cruel, but he had been very nice to Daichi for this day, hadn`t he? Too much, apparently.

'If only.' the sage muttered under his breath, leaning close to the younger boy to inspect his work. As far as he knew, all of Minato's siblings were dead. 'Kazekage-sama, please try to work on the instructions here, none of us would want your son or the beast to accidentally read it.'

'Of course I will. Please, Chiyo-sama, give me the scroll…' The older woman tossed him annoyed glance and started rolling the piece of paper into tight roll. What was wrong with him? He was playing like three years old on official politic meeting.

Poke.

Roll.

Poke.

Roll.

Poke – what – roll – what was that – poke - said just a moment ago – roll - like a brother? – poke - if he understood right… - poke - it meant…

The thin lips tightened even more. Daichi knew very well that if anything, he should have take out his head of the gutter. Really. But he couldn't; it was like dancing on the thin thread and trying to not think about what was below. Possible, and yet, not at all, because the knowledge just sat there, in the back of his brain.

Chiyo looked at her grandson for a moment. Two moments. The scroll hanged in front of his face just as she was giving it to him but he just stared through it at the ball, like if he wanted to slam it into the table for ill manners if paper could be ill mannered. His nerves were running high, she saw it in his eyes. They glinted like if he was sick, or worse – ready to start crying. And that didn't happen from ages. She cleared her throat.

He budged and noticed the scroll, unrolling it and scanning it with his eyes. But after a few moments, his muscles tensed and he started gaping at words the same way. But at least he was reading it on his own. She could trust him on the matter at least that much to know he'd understand what he read better than if she read it out to him.

Well, at least Daichi was concentrating on work again. Now to hope they finished figuring out what to do…

'How did you manage to get Gaara wet, Kazekage-sama?' he asked, curious. 'We need to get him into the water to slow the sand enough for me to be able to get close. But if Gaara-sama is that afraid of snow, I don't see how we would be able to get him into actual water.'

'It's a punishment.' The redhead said in a calm, indifferent voice. Thanks gods for his emotional training, thanks gods 'He stands in, I pour down the water.'

'And that's it?' asked Chiyo with astonishment in her voice. He nodded.

'That's it.'

And it really was. He just grabbed him and made him stand in the centre of the bathroom and made the water pour and flood the floor and neither the redhead and the sand moved. He just stood there, looked at him, protested loudly and started bawling in shrill loud voice when the water started reaching his ankles. At that point he usually was coming out of the bathroom. It was too hard to bear – the same for ears as for the image itself. It almost looked like if he was making him stand in molten lava – the kid, not the monster.

That's why his bathrooms had keys.

Minato made a face, but abstained from commenting. The monster hadn't sliced and diced his son on sight, and he seemed to be a sweet child when he was calmed. Obviously, Daichi had at least an idea of what he was doing.

'Is there any way to get him to the hot springs willingly, then?'

The man looked at him with a sour grimace, then turned to the paper, making an ironic chuckle.

'Such jokes are completely tasteless, Hokage-sama.' he said and scrolled down the paper yet again 'He will go near the watered area only if he thinks he deserves standing there. I swear I don't know how he can take only sand baths and have the cleanest skin from the whole family.'

Minato suddenly had an image of the sand rubbing the skin raw with just the exact amount of pressure to peel the dead cells off it- and shuddered. Jiraiya produced a map from under his jacket, pushing it to the center of the table.

'Sarutobi-sensei and I were looking around for a good place to do these. There are some pretty deep hot springs three hours deeper into the west, near the mountains. It`s far enough of the village, but if it gets out of hands, people are sure to come.'

'We'll just say we are sparring.' the Hokage said, leaning into it to gaze at the map. 'Kazekage-sama and I had a friendly match during my stay. By that, of course, I mean he did his best to turn me into minced meat, so one could expect me to try to return the favor now that we aren't in that hellish clam.'

'Not like if you could win against me.' Answered the man with a light chuckle and laid down the scroll for a moment, but not leaving his eyes from it for a second 'That sure was a good match. Very cathartic.' He stayed in that position for a moment, musing about what's happened then – not very emotionally, just scanning through it. He broke down his bones, but the blond broke down his nerves for the first time then – he let go of some of his issues then and made a fatal move just in spite of old times. And now it all rolled down to this. His smile dimmed a bit. Then he rose the scroll back and resumed reading.

'Oh yes. I assure you my spleen has never felt as catharsizes as it did then.' The blond added with a small chuckle.

Chiyo stared at him, startled. She never heard of any match between kages – this surely would be known in whole Suna and people would come to watch. What could have happened during then for Daichi to call it a 'cathartic match' and not a 'good fight'? She looked back at the blond. Something bigger must have happened. Not good. But plot-wise – it was a completely different matter.

'That sounds like a plan, ho ho ho!' she said, closing one of her eyes and laughing out loud 'I bet you would like to have one for sure, but too bad, you wouldn't win against our brat, he Is simply too strong, ho ho ho! Let's do that and say it's private, it would add to the intimacy, ho ho ho!'

Daichi gritted his teeth.

'The council will want to have a look, though…' he said, frowning lightly. 'We will need to leave replacements. I was planning to ask Sandaime-sama to cover for us, but after thinking about it, we need his help with us rather than in here.'

Using clones would be too risky. Should any of the originals run out of chakra or faint, they would dispel and immediately draw attention.

'I suppose we could leave someone in our place… Do you think Baki might be able to impersonate both you and me?' He didn't like the idea one bit, but he wasn't sure if drawing more people into the plot would be wise. The more were involved, the more likely someone would find out what was happening. Not to mention… who would he leave Naruto with? He needed Kakashi with him.

'There will be a new moon in two days.' the man said, extending the lunar calendar over the table. He had specifically planned the arrival of the guests so they would be able to plan for this, that's why Daichi's lateness without a warning had been so nerve wrecking. 'That's when the demon will be at its weakest, I suggest we attack then.'

'Baki is a specially trained jonin, the closest to me and the most trusted one. However, he is not that good to impersonate two completely different personas, especially if one is calm and serious and other for example, a childish bastard…' Chiyo raised her tiny eyebrow, looking at the saffron haired man. He seemed to be really straining the nerve and patience of their guests today – he just almost openly insulted the Hokage in the main service in front of him. But it didn't seem to be intentional, as Daichi hadn't even blinked at that. Maybe he really was too tired to think something smart '…so please, find yourself someone just as blond as you are, Hokage-sama.'

'And how do you know that the demon will be the weakest by then?' she asked, eyeing the blond suspiciously. Too many loopholes for a speech.

The scroll held by Daichi was laid on the counter twenty decibels too loudly.

'I told him.' he said, not looking at anyone. He seemed to be actually pretty interested in the picture that the calendar had above all the numbers 'I suggested a visit during new moon three months ago as Gaara wouldn't affect me as much as it would later and he didn't listen to me, as always.' Another mental punch. A friendly chat with needles here and there. But for a friendly chat Chiyo didn't like the way his eyes glistened.

Nope. Definitely not a slip. Intentional mental punch. The man looked at the calendar, avoiding Minato's gaze and looked at it like if it was the most natural thing on the world that Hokage not only knew it, but also planned it like that. The elder seemed to feel more and more left out of the politic – not that she didn't leave it solely many years ago, but she still used to know more than that in her previous days.

'I did listen to you, Kazekage-sama…' he said, again giving the older man a soft smile. He couldn't really help it- he had slipped. For a second he hadn't know what to do, what excuse to make – because, why should he know such thing as bijuu and the moon corelation - but there hadn't been any need to. Once again, the redhead had protected him. Why did Daichi do this to himself, even after so long...? He did it him, obviously, but why? Maybe he couldn't have married again, but nothing kept him from getting a lover, he wouldn't even have to be discreet. Six years were a long time, and the way he had broken up in the desert showed it took a toll on him; the things he had done the night before they left… _'Stay here.' 'Learn to love this land.' 'It will love you back.' 'Like Kushina did.'_

But could… _Suna _ever love him like Kushina had? This hadn't had happened before, wasn't that the reason that he had chosen her and not him? More importantly, would he let himself be loved? Daichi always cowered at the last minute and pulled back when he should have pushed. When Minato had wished he would push. Not that he had given him any reasons to do it, had he? He didn't remember almost anything, but he was sure things like what had happened in the desert had happened before, even if he didn't want to remember the details. But he knew he hadn't done anything, not as encouragement, not as rejection… he simply waited and when nothing happened, acted like if the episode had never happened and them simply… forgot about it.

And he always forgot… Daichi wasn't Kushina. Wasn't that the reason he held affection toward him? Maybe Daichi couldn't do the same things that she did, but he also could trust him to have better judgment than she had. He had loved her because she was strong and stubborn and willful, but that was also the reason she had died and he was alone now.

Kushina was dead and he was tired of being alone.

(I'm so sick of this)

And maybe if he had given a sign, any sign, the other man wouldn't have given up so easily.

(I'm so sick of people leaving me)

'I always listen to what you say.' He would have to seriously speak about this with Daichi. It would be the best for the both of them.

'Oh, do you, Hokage-sama?' The hawkish eyes glinted in the cold winter light when they landed on the blond's face. The glow was resembling of fresh gelatin – absolutely not how it should look like in one's whites. Yet, the pupils were strangely concentrated. What was the man trying to point at? That he listened?

Impossible. He remembered every time he spoke to him – spoke truthfully from the bottom of the heart. Those were rare moments of the glass being too full to contain anymore longing and hurt. It happened suddenly, when the breaking point of every barrier was broken – at the breakfast, at the mission, even at the friendly chat on walk. Every time he poured his heart out of the sleeve, first time being the most desperate – but every time Minato just… stepped around it. It looked almost like if he fell on his knees on their common road and the man just walked forward, looking at him but not giving him a hand but also not ignoring him. Almost like if he waited for him to grab on his legs and beg.

He was even tempted to. But once after particularly nasty talk the next day he went on sole mission with Kushina which ended up somewhere in a make out session (not that he saw or heard it, but he knew it; he smelled it in their clothes, spotted in eyes, atmosphere and that happy grin she wore) he just closed his mouth. What was the point of all this if the blond just seemed to listen to him like some sort of interesting exhibition that didn't leave a mark on him the next day? And there was always Kushina who took a step forward before he could gather courage to do that himself.

And even now, he told things that meant… he didn't know what the blond wanted from him anymore. A brother. Like if he ever played any other role. His gaze slowly slid down the face and stopped at the mouth. He wanted him for so long and he didn't even know how those tasted… He got back to looking at the eyes.

'Because I usually get the feeling that you only hear me out.' he spoke quietly with a painful frown '…but listening to what I say is too much for you.'

The gran looked at him with indignant stare. So he was going over the borders of amenity and good manners. Awful move. But he was good for too long.

'Is that so?' Minato went back to smiling relaxed. Now wasn't the time for these things. Afterwards, maybe. Daichi had no right to corner him when he was no better than him. He didn't listen? Daichi, listened, understood, and now he wanted to play the dusty cards right on the table… Too bad he had changed. He wouldn't wait this time, even if it hurt them both. But not now. They had bigger things to worry about. 'I apologize for the misunderstanding, then. But you must admit, Kazekage-sama, that you are older, so maybe the issue is merely a clash of generations…?'

That said, and feeling a little more at peace with himself, he broke the eye contact to go back to revising the seals with his teacher, though the sage seemed to be paying more attention to the Kazekage than the designs on paper. He didn't know what the older man was playing at, but he didn't like it. he just hoped they would solve his issues so he could go back to baking in that oven he had for a homeland.

'Obviously, a brat your age wouldn't listen to wise words of elders.' was the bitter answer backed up with a light chuckle. Daichi laughed for a moment, then turned to Chiyo, still smiling 'Isn't that right, Chiyo-sama?' The elder watched him for a moment with frown. Then she laughed out loud, opening another scroll.

'Finally you talk like a human, ho ho ho!' she said merrily, even when he stopped smiling 'But you shouldn't look at me, comparing to my experience and wisdom you're still unfeathered naked vultures that just hatched from eggs!...'

'Probably, probably…'

She looked at him attentively – he seemed to be out of it to get what was going on in the end. Not good – both for him and this meeting. He really should concentrate more. Maybe it would be good for Minato for once not be around him here. But that couldn't be since he was the main thread of the whole plan.

'But let's go back to work, Kazekage-sama.' she said, adding a bit of scolding edge to her voice. He frowned a little, but caught the scroll she gave him and started looking through it 'We can't be bothered by such triviality…'

He didn't seem to think so. But life was hard. He would get it – the sooner, the better. Then he could rest.

Daichi smiled ironically to his thoughts. New moon in two days. Should he not sleep tonight or eat the last pill after all? How long would it be for seals to be formed on his body? How long before activating them? How long? How long? How long?... It was all so unclear. At least he would get a revival of his lightening jutsu. He looked at Jiraiya. With such a nice, nice sensei. Time to eat humble pie.

The meeting ended three hours later, as it all had to be repeated again and again – finally they all agreed that Chiyo could be the one to cover them all and no additional person wouldn't be needed (the less knew about the plan, the better - and Baki wasn't that reliable anyway) and that Jiraiya would wait in hot springs for eventual surprise attack – surprises usually got all of the attention for a moment or two. The boring, but important facts were grinded and turned around again and again and finally – they could all gather their things and go to their rooms. Good.

'A-hem.'

Daichi looked at the elder woman, ready to go out, when he noticed she pointed at something suggestively with her eyes. When he turned to the source of her glare – he noticed there was still one thing left near his set – the small paper ball. Ah, of course. He almost forgot. The woman rolled her eyes at him again – like if she thought he didn't see her doing that (he did every damn time) and left him to take care of the trashy object. He took it in his hand and tossed for a moment, catching like the ball to baseball. Nice thing. It got poked around almost whole part of the table and still didn't seem to take the slightest offence at his doings. What could he do with such a nice gift?... He looked at it.

He really didn't have any place left in his luggage for it. And he kind of didn't like how it was given to him. That was more than enough to give it back. With one swift move he turned around and shot it at the just going out white haired man, hitting him on the head followed by immediate scurrying away to the exit. He really was tired and couldn't be bothered by acknowledgements. Really.

The sage winced- damn it, how come Sunanins could make paper hurt...?

'Be grateful he didn`t use it to knock out some teeth.' his student said, finishing picking up the papers as he gave him an amused look. Jiraiya snorted- no way he could knock teeth with paper. He waited until Minato was out of the room to open the message, curious despite himself.

Then he closed it in distaste. Some things were better left unanswered.


	19. Chapter Nineteen: Suffocating oneself

Daichi woke up with a headache. His body was slowly starting to get fed up of those pills he was trying to drug it with and after third night he felt like vomiting and gnawing his eyes out – only because this almost-sleep made him feel like if he was on constant wake where his body rested and his mind was only held at indifference which made his eyes hurt. Almost like if he stared at one point for ten to twelve hours.

But – luckily or not – the pill he ate the past evening was the last one he had. Now, the empty bottle he had with himself could be just thrown out of the window. Which he gladly did, making his frustration suffice for a few seconds as he watched the bottle flying and vanishing in the snow. Then he went inside his room and sat on the chair, closing his eyes shut for another hour. It might have looked like a completely senseless activity but it made the soreness go away. He tried not to think.

It was easy for first fifteen minutes with dull mind and fuzzy aftertaste of the rest of his pill in his bloodstream. Then his mind began to work and it was not so good anymore. He decided to not think about Minato for once. That bastard didn't deserve such devotion anyway. Even when he looked like if he was made to be gaped at. He touched briefly his arm. It was still there. The touch… It made his longing so much worse. He turned his head to the side with a groan. No, not thinking about it! He needed to concentrate… gather the chakra… he needed… the reason.

The reason to take Gaara to the water springs. Hypnotism was a hypnotism and it could make Gaara forget how he did get there, but it couldn't explain why he was there. And oh, did it feel awful for searching for a reason to give him punishment… he hated when the kid just stood there and bawled himself out to him. He just asked to be either hit shut or held very close. Especially now, as he knew how delicate this young body was. He seemed usually to be made of steel with all this sand. But under that he was just a… heart. A flesh and heart which beat so visibly – he could feel it through his skin like if Gaara was no one else but a small bird. Only little birds had the heartbeat so perceptible.

Damned Hyuuga. If they didn't come he wouldn't have to experience the closeness. It was almost like if the monster finally caught him on that 'child' illusion and could laugh at him freely. But he couldn't help it – the kid reminded him a human child too much. He opened his eyes and looked at the mirror. It will be so good once it all would end and he would be able to lay in his own bed in Suna and close this chapter in his life forever. So good. Soon, Gaara. Soon, Daichi. The end would start tonight.

'Keep telling yourself that' he thought and laid his head on his elbows. The beginning of an end was never as easy as it seemed.

But tonight, as far away as it was, finally had to came. When the old clock in his room finally dinged the five p.m. making him look through the window, he knew it was time to come out. Finally. The preparations at the place were probably coming to an end now. He looked through the window at the place and lit the lamp. The air was almost too clear, biting cold. How those people could live here in that season he had no idea. It was a strange change after the heat in Suna as high temperatures were rarely good to bear, but when it was cold nonstop and people walked only in sweaters inside those wooden houses… he shuddered at the thought. The fact itself made all Konohans crazy by default.

He slowly wore every piece of his warming clothes, smoothing it like if he was going to a wedding if not the grand ball. He knew it was absolutely not needed and wasting time, but it made his hands tremble a little less. But when he wore the clothed piece of kerchief around his face, he knew there was no way to elongate this more. He had to go out. He wore a hat, his black gloves, warm boots, tossed the last glance in the mirror, opened the door and almost tripped on his own shoes. Minato stood just right behind his door. Along with himself. Henge'd puppets.

But they were far.

Too.

Close.

To themselves. He always kept distance of at least half of a meter. They just bumped at each other. He narrowed his eyes.

Stupid witch never knew when to stop with those jokes of hers.

'Ho ho ho, almost got you there, hasn't I!' she spoke up, coming out from behind the figures and cackling at his distaste 'If they fooled you then it means they cannot be any better, thanks for the assertion, ho ho ho!...' He looked after her with a glare, but she seemed to be oblivious to the killing vibes as she moved along the corridor. She just ignored him, he knew that. But she also knew that he knew that she knew she couldn't be touched with single finger until the mission would come to an end because this flaw could blow everything out. So he just stood in the door, waiting for them to move. She really could stop making them bump at each other. What if someone would start thinking… thinking… things!...

No, he had to stop running that way. He closed his eyes for a moment, clearing his mind and stepped toward the room near his. Gaara's room. The kid sat on the same spot as he first left him, but the sand didn't spring from walls to him as before, it just slid gently from the ceiling to the floor, making an empty circle everywhere his foot stepped. Such a gentleness, really. He didn't deserve it for what he was going to do… He looked at the kid. The redhead looked back at him with calm, trusting expression. Now that was like biting on a lemon.

'Gaara… get up.' he said, taking the first bite and letting the juices flow through his throat 'We're going on a walk.'

The kid nodded at him and hurried to wear additional clothing. Without suspecting anything.

How can he be so naïve?

And it was a beautiful evening. Also not for Suna standards. But for winter… The snow started shining gleefully, almost like if someone spilled endless jewels on it, making the darkness shine with admirable light. The redhead walked near him, holding onto his robes just as he told him and looked at it with curiosity. Who couldn't? He himself found his eyes running through the untouched masses with pleasure as he never saw something like that at home. Fake mica at sandy nights was nothing compared to this. But also, the sky on the desert night was nothing compared to those few doleful dots the village sported above their heads.

Soon, also those melancholic points has vanished as they entered the booth area that was supposed to be closed at that time. And it probably was as many of the stores were closed and very few people walked around, but there were still some opened and it made the walking quite problematic.

And it was so full of lights and many colorful things that the kid couldn't contain himself and started looking around everywhere, along with the gourd. For a few moments he could swear that the sand acted more childish than Gaara himself when it just ran through the way to gape at the colorful fishes in aquariums or got mixed in the machine of cotton candy, swirling madly with a smile (until it broke). Thankfully, people either were too stupid or too blind toward the fact that a handful of sand was running around – not that he knew how was that possible. He just decided to ignore it to not gather the attention to it and not to make people realize something was wrong because then he would be able to speak about real problems.

He also tried to not gather attention of the people on himself, but as the kage he did anyway, so there was no helping it. Finally, he bought a pack of a few salty crackers to occupy the kid with anything and not gain more attention than they already did. Finally, it worked (not to mention that Gaara stared at him like if he was stupid; probably because he never gave him anything like that before, but the fear of suspicion fled away as the kid smiled at him and took the cookies from his hands). What an awful way to get to hot springs. And Minato said there shouldn't be any people there. Maybe he should have listened to that white haired ass and go through the forest like a normal ninja would. Even if it would make Gaara suspicious beyond the breaking point.

But finally, the entrance for the place has presented itself to them. That was it. It was time to move to the other plan. He looked at the kid. Shukaku kept glancing back at the colorful lights they left in the populated area and Gaara just kept on gnawing on the cookie. It seemed the frost in the air made them a little too hard to eat it at one bite. There was no better moment for this. He made a big step forward, suddenly making a rampant move with his robes and made the redhead fall down on his face and spill the cookies on the snow. The quiet 'rrriiip' was heard in the air was too loud to not notice.

He looked down on his robe. Just as executed. The luxury body coverlet made in Suna especially for missions in cold places gained a big hole just in the place where the redhead was holding it. For once the lessons in academy how to cut the material to let it break later were useful for something. He turned his face to the kid. Gaara looked at the hole like if he couldn't understand how it got there. He frowned at him.

'Gaara.' he spoke 'What the hell are you doing?'

The kid looked at him with terrified expression and let go of the robe, making it dangle on nonexistent wind like a broken flag. Then he crawled away for a few steps, looking at him with scared expression. The sand sizzled.

'I didn't do anything…'

He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't even know how it got there. He was just walking, eating cookies his father bought him and it was really nice, almost like never at home, when suddenly his father made a fierce move making him fall and… the hole was there. And he didn't even pull that hard.

But it seemed that his father didn't believe him.

'What the hell did you just do?' the man shouted at him, showing him the piece of robe like if he was not looking at it all the time, closing to him and leaning to him 'So I take you for a walk and buy you cookies and that's how you pay me back for my kindness?'

'But I didn't do it!' he shouted, getting up with fear. The cloth looked very expensive and it was a part of kage robes as it suited the blue pattern. And one of the most forbidden rules was touching the official clothes without permission, much less destroying it. 'It just tore… itself!...'

'Itself on the wind, huh? Well I think something else!' Gaara flinched at the dark tone as the man leaned over him. The sand jumped nervously, circling him and his father, hissing warningly. That was bad. That tone meant that father was really, really angered. 'I think you did it. Deliberately!'

'No!...' Gaara whimpered as the man caught him by an arm and made him stand up violently 'I didn't do it, I'm sorry!...'

'Oh, so you're sorry now for something you didn't do?' hissed the man, looking at him and finally letting go of the messed up robe 'So you admit that you destroyed the kage robes!'

'No, father!... I'm sorry!...'

'You awful brat!... What, do you think now that simple 'sorry' would fix this? Do you?' Daichi shook the kid like if he expected to shake the answer from his throat that got stuck in him somewhere. When Gaara didn't say anything beyond whimpering at him, he finally let him stand normally.

'You know what I think? He spoke in a grim voice 'I think it deserves a punishment.'

The kid looked at him for a moment like if it got hit with something and didn't understand what's happened. Then, his breath hitched and he started gasping on the air like if he was on the run.

'No… father, no…' he muttered. Without a word, the older man turned on the way and started leading him through the snow to the entrance of hot springs. The sand swirled and shot up, looking somewhere up there with suspicious eye and when it noticed the water mist - it fell down with a loud crash on the ground. The kid broke into hysterics almost immediately.

'No! Father, no! I'm sorry!...' he started screaming and made his steps more hesitant as first tears fell. He glanced at him with an anger and all resistance faded away, making the kid bawl loudly and walk with him, hand in hand. He opened the door to the hall. Sandaime Hokage stood at the reception. But it was so quiet that everybody probably knew already that they came in. Gaara's hysterics got louder.

'Two tickets to hot springs.' he said to the man and held up the redhead up, making him face the reception 'I have to punish that kid for what he has done. Such a shame, and it was such a nice day…'

He gritted his teeth as Gaara leaned back, still crying and holding onto his hands like if he was his savior and the man the executioner. Either the kid didn't seem to think straight or…

'I'm sorry!...' he yowled, his face already puffy and pink from crying 'Father, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry!...'

He frowned as the man leaned on the counter, hiding his hands under it, like if he was searching for tickets, and actually, he was making hand seals under there. Daichi glanced sideways, nervous. Sand was detecting the changes in chakra and it seemed that even now, even if it was distracted by the fact he was going to land it in the water it also glanced back. Shukaku expected something, because the smile on his sandy face dimmed until it became hostile and nervous pairs of sharp teeth that ran around him. It wasn't a good sign.

'Shut up!' he growled at the kid, more hysterically now than angrily as it seemed that at the very beginning everything was falling apart. 'You deserve it and you know it very well!'

At that statement the old hands of the Sandaime shot up and pressed at the kid's forehead, making him froze in the middle of the cry, and a moment later – hang down, limp and soft.

He turned him around. He looked at him with calm, empty stare, even if some tears didn't stop rolling on his cheeks yet. The sand froze for a moment.

'It's time to go, Kazekage-sama.'

He looked at the elder. The man came out from the counter and spun into quick walk, leading the way. The sand fell down on the floor and started sizzling madly with a tempo he never saw on it before. Once he closed the first door it spun into a chase, running after them and passing his feet with such a blow he almost tripped on it. But then the body in his arms budged and the minerals backed away for a moment, only to pass him and run straight into the Sandaime. The man executed a quick shielding jutsu, barely missing it, making him also run if he wanted to know the way. After a few moments of running, the wide watered area has presented itself to them. Other people were there too.

He barely tossed them a glance as his role was still not done yet; the sand behind him started beating on the wall, wanting to omit the shield and doing it quite successfully. The thin paper tore at every beat, shooting straight for him. But then, Gaara budged again and the sand backed down, forming an angry face of a raccoon that sizzled almost like if it emitted a roar. He felt like the bitter taste of the mental lemon stopped at his throat and started gnawing at him, very urgently wanting to make him cry. He ran into the water till it reached his hips and clawed at the loose body to himself for a moment.

(what if this all is going in a wrong direction?)

'It all will be better later, I promise.' He whispered quickly, not knowing if he wanted to convince the kid or himself. Gaara flinched lightly, turning his head toward him almost invisibly. He heard the sand rushing at him again. That was it.

'I'm sorry, Gaara.' He muttered 'For everything.'

And then he dropped the kid into the water, pushing him under for a moment. The sand hit him on the back, missing him for a moment and all dipped down after the redhead with a terrifying howl. Soon, the water became dark with mud.

He came to the surface a moment later, gasping for air and moving away to the shore as quick as he could. He was not expecting to be hit by the sand, but also the sand was not expecting him to push Gaara underwater, so he got out of there – all wet, but without a scratch. Then he ran to the back of the place and stood in the defensive stance. The silence was horrifying. Only bubbling water, almost like if Gaara was not a drowning human but an ingredient to be cooked on small fire. He saw the Sandaime standing nearby.

'Is he…' he said but as the man tossed him a nervous glance, he quieted down. Sandaime was still holding hands up, ready to make the first blocking seal. Daichi shuddered (why) and looked at the water (why am I afraid). The bubbles spun madly, mulling the surface.

Gaara was never pushed underwater as whole.

The silence stretched, tense and pregnant with questions. They watched the lake when it sizzled, they watched it when the water stilled and when all movement stopped. Daichi looked at the calm water, waiting, feeling how something was happening to him, there inside. Gaara… where was Gaara?... He pushed him only under the surface… He should be out already!...

Silence. He couldn't drown, could he?

'Gaara!' he called out, despite himself. But nobody answered. Silence.

'Gaara!' he called out once again, louder this time, feeling the rising anxiety. Minato shot him a nervous glance, but he couldn't calm down. The feeling of wrong rose to the disturbing levels in him, hardly suppressed by the emotional training. This simply was not right.

He couldn't come down to himself after what's happened lately. His mind was unstable lately and making decisions got hitched in him. It was just a monster, wearing the skin of his youngest child, the bijuu, one tailed, the old monk Shukaku… and yet…

(this is not right)

It was like a bug, he remembered the touch under his chin and it didn't want to go away. He didn't feel like a monster then at all.

Why was the sand not reacting? He looked at the lake.

Nothing. He looked at the group, the clear confusion written on Jiraiya's face and the nervous expression of Minato didn't help him at all.

'Has he drowned?...' he asked, feeling completely lost. He was the one who was supposed to know better, and yet, he asked this question. The blond Hokage looked at him, his mimic crestfallen.

'How should I know?...'

That was it. He frowned, then scowled, once again more hysterically than angrily and clenched his fists.

'You and your stupid ideas!...'

And he didn't wait anymore. But when he stepped inside the warm lake, looking at the dark spot under the surface, the water suddenly

rose up

starring at him

like a big bubble

and burst in the biggest blow he had ever anticipated since his worst mission in the Water Country. It took a moment for everyone to get wet like rats, but that wasn't the worst. What blew around didn't dissolve but stayed on the place, showing a very deformed, wet sand. It held on a redhead with the tight grip. Gaara looked at them all with an empty gaze.

He didn't see them at all. But then

(he know we're here. He does)

Then the sand sizzled around the small body and rose his hands into a very, very loose hand seal.

_Tanuki neiri no jutsu – Fake sleep_

#+#+#+#+#+#

It was by sheer force of will that Minato didn't cover his ears. He had known it would come down to this, as there really didn't seem to be any other way to get Gaara there, and unless they slowed down the sand, drawing blood would be impossible. But this… Minato had never been especially sensitive, and he would be the first one to admit he had problems with empathy… He had problems with caring for the things that weren't his and weren't related to him in any form. That was the reason he was an effective assassin; the people he killed were targets, no more and no less, and if they had families, lives, dreams of their own, that wasn't his business and he never stopped to think about it.

It was vital for a mission not to make it personal for the necessary amount of effectiveness… but how could this not be personal? This was a torture. There was no other way of classifying this, Daichi might not be physically abusing his kid but the emotional scarring these kind of things could leave…? They might as well be worse; and when he thought back about the pale, small kid with large green eyes and shy, curious smile… A little kid that had a monster stuck to him like a parasitic growth with black eyes and a smile like that of a shark – all made of sand, all teeth teeth teeth and that sadistic glee that was all those demons could do, flee, glee and hunger and, he was just a little kid that…

…could have been his own?

'No matter the cost, take whatever you want… just seal it.' His words to the Death God, his orders- his pleads. 'Kill it, kill it, I want it gone.'

Daichi had had scrolls and a group of the best seal masters and medics of Suna at his disposal and everything had gone wrong because of something as stupid as his frail little wife going into labor too early and at the worst possible time; so much pain and so many lives ruined because of something so stupid, so easily avoided! And he…? He had lost everything and didn't want to go on anymore. He had pulled a suicidal seal and would have paid the price gladly and yet it had worked- how could life be so twisted and unfair? How could things be so unpredictable and out of control, out of sense?

Naruto was his only son, the only thing left of the woman he had loved, and if it hadn't been for him, he wouldn't have been able to make it through these years or this life, he simply wouldn't have had a reason to. If Naruto had turned out to be like Gaara- if he hadn't been a normal little kid that was too loud and ate too much ramen and never obeyed his orders and made him worry endlessly- if he had just been the handy little box the demon used for transportation… What could he have done then? Daichi was stronger than him. He always had been.

He had followed the pair all the way through a safe distance, worrying each and every moment by what the sand could do to his friend and amazed that it didn't. He finally allowed himself to relax slightly when the child was safely submerged in the water, only to start fretting again when nothing happened- hadn't Daichi said the sand would keep him from getting harmed and pull him up? Was hot water that much stronger against the sand?

He was about to get out of the safe spot and run for the kid himself- when the sand made hot water explode like a geyser, a dark, deformed shape holding the tiny form, manipulating his hands into a jutsu… Oh, kages. How could they have not expected something like this?

'Kakashi, now! Kage Bunshin!'

He immediately ran in the open with two other clones besides him, rushing as fast a she could to the beast- they had to wake him up before it had a chance to get out of control. They had to.

Kakashi without a word of hesitance made two clones and ran after his sensei. He didn't expect the immobile body to make any kind of hand seal. They forgot that the monster was not a mindless beast and knew everything it needed to know about the ninja world. Nobody suspected it would use the kid as a puppet to steer himself out of cage. He jumped onto the shore along with his two clones, opening his sharingan. It didn't work against the monster as much as he wished it could. But if there was at least tiny chance of helping, he had to use it. You never knew how thin are chances of winning and losing your life.

Daichi sat on the shore, frozen, petrified as the hand seal had been executed. The black eyelids hid empty gaze slowly, very, very slowly, almost like in a slow motioned movie…

'_Hey brat.' _

Darkness.

'Mommy…'

Voice.

'_Why are you crying, brat?' _

Presence.

'Father is mad at me again… I tore his special robe so he decided to toss me into the water…'

And light. The lithe body, curled up, covered up, small ball of shame and innocence. Beaten. Hurt. Alone. No teddy. It cried.

'I didn't want to do that!... It was so nice, so different this time, father bought me cookies and walked with me… he never did that…'

'_That's unfair.' _

Golden eyes moved lightly, yellow over black, black over brown. The hunched figure of disfigured hunter.

'I didn't do it… I would never, ever tear the robes! It was so nice… maybe he would hug me if that wouldn't happen? I want to daddy!... Mother!...'

'_That's unfair.'_ repeated the figure and moved a little closer _'He hurt you.'_

'I want to my nice daddy!...'

'_He is not nice daddy. He punished you…' _

'Mommy!...'

'_Come to me, brat… we will find the nice daddy…' _

The body budged, shaking. No teddy. Alone. No love.

'I can't!... I can't move!... Mommy!...'

The golden eyes shifted. Inched closer. Slowly.

'_Come to me, brat… come to me… we will find the nice daddy… we will punish the bad father.'_

The body budged, shaking. It cried. Alone. It gasped.

Alone.

'I can't breathe!... I can't move!... Father!... Father, where are you?...'

The figure inched closer. And it stilled, leaning forward, above the figure, big, big, great, enormous, giant… it smiled lightly. He stopped crying. He froze. And slowly looked up.

'Daddy?...'

The giant face fell on him, the masses and mountains of sand engulfed him, consuming him, swallowing whole cutting, eating away…

'_Come to me brat… we will find a nice daddy… we will punish the bad father… and we will be free!' _

He cried, wanting to get out, wanting to move and run away as he always did, but now… now his hands has changed into the wood and didn't listen to him at all. He drowned. Drowned in himself.

'_We will murder everyone!...'_ barked the laughter of the grand beast, somewhere above him, echoing through his mind. He whimpered. _'Punish everyone!...'_

'Don't hurt anyone!... Mother!... Mother, don't hurt Naruto!... Don't hurt Kankuro and Temari!... Don't hurt them!...'

The laughter barked somewhere further away. Light dimmed. Sand slowly ate his consciousness. Mother was getting away. Mother was set free… Mother was going to punish the world.

'Mother… mother, don't hurt daddy…' he whispered, sliding deeper, without control, unmoving, alone, lonely 'Daddy!...'

And he vanished.

The red head slowly fell down on the lithe chest as the wet sand consumed the body completely, showing big black eyes which shone with pure gold, so different from this blank yellow as usual and opening big mouth in a scary grin and leaned toward him.

'_Hello… father.'_ Daichi whimpered, leaning on his elbows, immobile with situation that overwhelmed him. Then the sand started laughing. A deep, rumbling laughter.

'_I loved the goldfishes__.'_ it said, slowly coming out of the water _'I will thank you… with death!'_

The sudden masses of heavy sand rushed onto him, directly onto him from above and he knew, he was going to die!... And the sand stopped. Like hell he was going to die. He had son to save from that nightmare. He held his hands just in front of the sand that was just hanging above him, waiting, immobile. His body moved on his own. He didn't even know how he did those hand seals. Amazing thing, that reflex.

But he was laying on his back and couldn't move from that if he didn't want to release the seal. He looked at the sand. There. He saw a strand of red hair there. He was just beneath the surface…

'Somebody, wake him up!' he screamed, feeling how his hands started to tremble. He couldn't hold the seal for longer than few seconds. Five to seven at most. And time was already passing 'Now!'

Minato didn't know what caused the thing to stop- from this angle, it was impossible to see Daichi, with the sand halfway about to engulf him- and even if he had known, he didn't have time to stop and wonder about it, every second counted. He ran as fast as he could, a blur of blue, pale green and yellow to the top of the monster, three perfectly equal blondes looking desperately for the half buried medium

'Kakashi, where is he?'

Three sharingans flashed at once, detecting impossible masses of chakra – the monster was practically made of chakra – and searched for the body, but it was impossible to find small source of chakra swallowed and surrounded by endless amounts of one. He looked through, up, down, back, forth- wait, what was that? He spotted a small void shape just above the golden eyes that stared directly at the Kazekage and scanned it quickly. It seemed to be much weaker than then monster himself, almost empty, and yet, connected… almost like if it was feeding the monster and not otherwise. It had to be Gaara.

'The forehead!' he shouted, pointing at the empty shape 'Right above the eyes!'

Minato went for it, his two clones surrounded the area where only a few strands of red hair showed (how could the kid breathe?) and held his hand, quickly channeling chakra- it couldn't be too much. If he used too much he might actually hurt the kid, but he needed to get him out.

'Chidori!'

The unconscious face of sleeping Gaara showed up to the world. The sand began to shake. Golden eyes slowly moved up, spotting Minato.

'_You!...'_ could be spotted mumbling through the massive teeth. Daichi tsked, trying to hold the seal. Six... seven… eight…

'What the hell are you doing, wake him up now!' he howled, trying to control the seal as his hands started to shake uncontrollably. It hurt. Like holly hell, it hurt.

'Sensei!' shouted Kakashi, jumping up with him and grabbing the kid, wanting to move him out. But he was stuck too deep. He didn't move. 'How to wake him up without releasing the hypnosis?'

Was that even possible?

'Hi badger.' one of the Minato's said, grinning tightly as the three pressed a small device made of glass, metal and wood to three different portions of the kid's neck. 'Missed me?'

Blood immediately started flowing into the vials.

if that wakes Gaara or, was irrelevant, Minato had decided all they needed was blood.

'_I will kill youuu!...'_ The low threat turned into the loud growl as the seal got broken. Daichi shouted, seeing the sand falling onto him and only managed to cover his head with hands as his body moved and… He was outside the sand thanks to the slick lasso. A frog's tongue. For a moment he looked at the white haired sage, breathing heavily.

'Thanks.' he muttered finally and got up to the defensive stance. But it seemed it was not needed. Not as much at least.

The beast roared, getting up and shooting with the sand from its forearms at the people on its forehead. Kakashi immediately jumped back, but one of his clones got caught and vanished. The second barely pushed the original from the way of another sandy arm as it vanished alone. Shukaku roared. But then Gaara budged. And opened his eyes. Green pupils stared at Minato for a moment with surprise. The last thing he remembered was counter. And this old man with wrinkles and- What- What was that- It… it what- It…

'Hurts!' he yelled, shaking and breaking into gasps and tears. The sand blanked and stilled and then started falling down without any sign of life. They fell into the muddy water.

'Sandaime-sama!' One of the Minato's tossed the three vials to the oldest man, the priority being to get them away and where they would be safe of any damage immediately.

'Got it!' said the older man, catching them on a move and running away from the place at once.

'Kakashi-kun…!' One of the Minato's appeared next to the jounin, helping the teenager up. 'Are you okay?'

A moment later a thoroughly soaked Hokage carrying a little redhead in his arms jumped out of the hot springs, blue eyes glaring daggers at the water.

'Stupid badger…' he had actually had to fish the redhead from the thing, as it seemed determined to drown them both. Apparently his royal madness couldn't hold its weight too well on water. 'Is everyone okay?'

Gaara looked at him with wide eyes, trembling. Sand sizzled in his wounds like little vermins, blocking the blood from going out and making the pain worse. But those were only little bits that stayed on his and blond skin once they got out of the lake. The rest rumbled in the water, slowly getting out of it, determined to follow the host and swallow him completely. He felt insecure. He felt hurt, wet and in pain…

'Mother…' he whimpered, looking at Minato again. Shukaku in his mind went crazy, but nobody could hear that. 'I'm sorry… I will never touch the robes again…' If that meant such punishment, he will never, ever even look at them.

'I'm okay!' said Kakashi, not being okay, because that gentle, small place where his back ended and his legs started got a nice hit as he landed on it. Oh, he would never think that ass could hurt like that. Ooow. 'I'm fine!'

'I'm fine as well.' said Daichi, closing the distance between them and reaching his hands for the kid. But once Gaara spotted him, he curled up to Minato and made a low, broken whimper of protest. The man was still wearing that robe. And if he would get it wet? And if he would tear it more?

'No!...'

Daichi stopped and slowly let his hands down. It seemed it was too much of everything to even get close to him anymore. No wonder, monsters didn't like when they were treated badly. But somehow, it felt bitter. He turned around and went out of the place.

'Look out for the sand, it bites.' The sand rustled wetly behind Minato's feet, trying to form sharp fangs, but making only a poor resemblance of wetted dots.

'So do I~' Minato said, grinning at the malformed face in the sand tightly and agilely stepping out of it as the clone dispelled. Jiraiya chuckled lowly and offered a hand to Kakashi, the large red and black toad he had summoned now sitting on one of the further springs with a cold towel on its head.

'Good job, kid.' Minato turned again to assess everyone seemed to be fine, then looked down at the little redhead in his arms. Without the sand, he weighed less than Naruto.

'What a mess… are you okay, Gaara-sama?' he asked, stroking the redhead's back as he did his son when he had a nightmare and followed after Daichi. Gaara leaned into touch right away. But he still looked at Minato with wide haunted gaze, like if he just saw a very nasty murder in front of his very own eyes.

'I'm wet.' he said quietly, clutching at his clothes and opening it to hide his face. The sand was anywhere to be seen, still a little away as it crawled on the floor slowly, like a tired dog on invisible leash. He wanted to hide from the world. Away. He got hurt. It hurt. Hurt. His neck still hurt. He let out a sob.

'Aw, poor kid.' said Kakashi, walking by Minato with kind of hobbled walk and looking at them both but he didn't dare to touch him. 'But we're not going to get out like that on that freeze, ri-' He looked at the empty room. Obviously, the Third and Kazekage did go out. Sandaime could because there was nothing wrong with him, he was the only one who stood back, holding onto hypnosis and thus – avoided most of the wettening. But the saffron haired man got all wet once he came in. He winced at the sole idea of getting out at this cold bite. That could not be serious or even normal.

'Yes, being wet happens at hot springs. But it was nice, hot water, was it not?' Minato said with a smile, hugging the redhead a little righter. Minato stared after the older man and shook his head, quickly saying something to the silver-haired teen and continuing to walk around with the little boy in his arms, not quite wanting to sit down and wait for the sand to catch up. 'Hot springs are the best in winter, Konoha is famous for them. You know, Naruto was just asking me about coming to them the other day…'

'Okay, I'll do it!' said Kakashi, still hesitant about even trying to move a nose out from the place – at springs it was hot like if it was summer and outside… He went to Jiraiya. As much as crazy this behavior seemed – which meant that usually it was better to leave yourself out of it – they couldn't let a guest, and Kazekage at that, go pneumonic. Especially before the other things that were supposed to be done. As far as he understood, that man was still a key to some things and he needed to be healthy at that point. At least he was not the one to bring the change of clothes. The redhead sniffed audibly and hid his face deeper into the Hokage's robe. The word Naruto caught his attention, but it didn't ease his pain now.

'I'm hurt…' he mewled, pressing against the blond with whole body 'I will never touch the blue robe again!...'

'Shhh…' Minato murmured soothingly at the little kid, still walking around in circles and sidestepping the sand. 'You are not hurt, Gaara-sama. It was just a nightmare because you fell asleep. Dream-pain disappears after a little while, when your whole body finished waking up…' If Gaara was anything like his son, the punctures would be healed in less than an hour.

Gaara slowly stuck his head out from the vest and stared at Minato with wide opened eyes. 'You promise?'

'Of course. And I'm Hokage, so I take my promises very seriously.' Minato smiled, brushing the redhead's wet bangs from the soft skin of his forehead. 'I also promised Naruto he would play with you when he is done being grounded… What do you say, Gaara-sama. Would you accept an humble invite to our house to play with my son in a few days?'

The redhead looked at him for a moment with thoughtful expression. Then he leaned on him with disappointed stare. The brushing felt very nice. Nobody did it to him so he didn't know how to express his gratitude, but once the hand moved away from his forehead, he was observing it. Once it touched, he turned his gaze to Minato. To Naruto? Of course he would want to! He would want to very much… he liked the blond. And mommy liked him. This would be fun…

'Father doesn't allow me to play with Naruto.' he said quietly. And after what's happened today, he probably never, ever would permit him to get near the blond again.

'Mhh, that's true.' Minato said, looking at the redhead seriously. 'I'll just have to ask him very nicely until I convince him. But you need to be in your best behavior for the following days for him to agree. Can you promise me that, Gaara-sama?'

Gaara nodded, still sniffling a bit and he laid his head down under the vest again, closing his eyes. Of course he will be good. He always was. Only sometimes he wasn't. The sand behind Minato slowed down and ceased rustling, going around him with smooth waves, wetting all floor and getting lost between the tiles. The clear, dry dots were rising above the floor, sticking to Minato's clothes, slowly creating a layer of sand on it.

'Get off me, you oversized weaver…' the Hokage muttered coldly, eyeing the larger masses and just waiting for the thing to start looking at him again. 'Gaara-sama…?'

He ruffled the redhead's hair, allowing the little boy to remain sticking to his chest, a little surprised at how trusting he could be. maybe so much time with Naruto had made him kid-friendly...?

'I really dislike sand on my clothes on general, could you please ask it to stay off of me?'

Daichi was almost all the way out of the enclosed area when the toad sage caught up with him.

'Hey.' The man said, stepping in front of the door with a serious expression 'You are not going to be of much help for anyone if you catch pneumonia. Go back, the brat wants you to stay here until we get back with some dry clothes.'

The saffron haired man stopped for a moment, hesitating. He was going out because maybe then he wouldn't have to wait around the kid who didn't want to be touched by him and the blond who, how to say it, liked to touch him when he wanted him to. Not saying about other things, like talking, looking nice, more, saying things that didn't go well with him and, well, being a very enthusiastic problem in his life over all, which he welcomed until it became a little too much to be solved the way he wanted to.

Which, yes, was actually a reason to go out and try to measure if he could catch pneumonia or not. But also, if he caught pneumonia, who knows how long he would have to actually stay here. This sickness, as far as he heard, could last for weeks. He gave a man a bored, disinterested glare.

'And who is going to bring them? You?' Which would be very funny as the sage was hidden in the water and was just as drenched as he was.

The sage chuckled softly.

'As much as I abhor the idea of acting as a servant to Suna, I'm the only one fit for it. The kid's bruised up and the brat's got his hands full. Not to mention if we let our important guest step outside here, he might as well turn into a very sour popsicle… Too bad we won't get to see that.'

Daichi smiled back at him with sly, arrogant smile.

'I will be watching you departing.' he said with saccharine cute voice. Very, very long 'To see you will be safe. Stay… warm.' And I will wave to you once you won't be able to wave me back. This will be an interesting lack of manners toward him. Or maybe not really. But that didn't mean he didn't want to do that.

'Please, bring me something you would never wear yourself, and I don't mean underwear only.' he said and looked at his nails. Gods, he got broken three. He would never be able to get into Akatsuki like that. 'But if it will be polka dotted or a skirt, I will make sure you will be standing on this weather naked.'

'What odd things youngsters say these days…' Jiraiya mused out loud, turning around and starting to walk to the village. 'I wonder if all these incoherency comes from your medicine, a rising fever, or thinking too much about finally getting to see Minato strip again after such long a hiatus from your hobby…?'

The smile on Daichi's face dissipated like a fiercely blown out candle. Three seconds later the door which didn't manage on getting closed after Jiraiya screeched in the opening sound again and a big, hard, round ball of snow hit the man's head squarely on the centre of the skull. But before he could even turn around, the saffron haired man vanished inside the building again.

_Ball off_.

The sage bore the pain with a tight grin, ignoring the harsh climate on his skin. Cold was nothing to him. After so many years of standing perfectly still and hidden in the snow or sand or under direct line of blazing sun for… research purposes, nothing could stop him.

'At-choo!'

The redhead slowly moved his head out from the hiding and looked at the sand coming onto his skin. Then he extended his hand and made the sand crawl onto his own body, covering his neck tightly. But all newly dried dots still stuck to Minato first and when the kid took his hand again to hold onto the blond, it started recreating the layer from the beginning.

'Mommy says she likes you.'

Daichi stopped at those words. He was about to enter the room, but he hesitated at the expressed sentence. To him Gaara never said that 'mommy liked him'. He didn't have to. From the first eye contact they made, he knew that the beast was thankful, ironically, but still, for letting him use the body of his youngest. Probably that's why sand never really hurt him. But wasn't that ironic…

He peaked around the corner, looking at the blond carrying his youngest, being followed by lumps of wet sand. The redhead clung to him like to no one before – not even Yashamaru. Was he tired or really that trusting? Once someone hurt him he never really liked him back. But was it possible for Gaara to not notice that the one to inject the needles into his neck was Minato himself? Or maybe he just forgave him, because the blond was simply stunning like that?... That was possible…

He turned his face to lean on the wall for a moment and calm his beating heart again. The morning was not half close and he was left without pills. The action took too short. And the idea they were both in hot springs… He banged his head on the wall two, three times. It was like someone up there was sitting on clouds and pointing his finger at him, laughing all the time. He breathed. In. Out. In…

He turned around the corner and came into the room. The redhead flinched at his sight. Great. NOW, when he was going to get the monster blocked, the redhead decided to be really afraid of him. He stepped on the sand, wetting it and making it sizzle quicker – probably a sign of unhappiness. Then he sat down on one of the chairs and turned his gaze away. If that was how Gaara wanted it to be, then fine... perfectly fine with him.

Minato made a face, though if it was in reaction to the sensation or to the words, it would be hard to tell.

'The sand isn't your mother, Gaara-sama. I met your mother, and I was at her wedding.' he said soothingly, expelling chakra to make a thin layer over his skin. Not that he thought it would help much. 'She was a very beautiful woman, and her eyes were just like yours. The sand has yellow eyes. It's a thing pretending to be your mother so you will listen to it. Your mother would never have hurt anyone I know.'

'Mommy doesn't say she is mommy, she probably forgot. But I remember for her.' said Gaara with confidence, looking at the sand as it jumped at the chakra and started sticking on it recreating the layer of the sand yet again. He extended his hand, making it go to his back and let go for it to start for the fourth time. 'Uncle says mommy is in the sand. She protects me.'

'Your mother's dead.' Gaara flinched, but not even a flicker of understanding went through his eyes. Almost like if he blocked the words out from hearing.

'Gaara-sama…' Minato stared at the older redhead for a moment and then continued walking around with his son in his arms, stroking him lightly. 'I don't know why your uncle told you that, but it's not true. I met your mother, and this chakra isn't hers. I`m sure your mother is with you, but she isn't in the sand. Your mother was a nice, gentle girl, and she would never do any of the things the sand does.'

'Because it's her chakra and mine. That's makes it different.' The redhead looked at him with calm face. Maybe this man knew his mom when she was a human and not that big thing, but he never really met her then so how would he know if the man spoke the truth? He could as well just be talking about her but thinking differently. Like Kankuro when he touched the cat he said its 'puffy' and Temari, when she touched the same cat said his hair is 'slick'. And it was still the same cat. 'My uncle knows because mommy is his sister. If I was my uncle's son my mommy would be my aunt.'

Daichi snorted.

'If he always listened to her like he says he did then you even wouldn't be here on this world.' he muttered under his nose. Gaara looked at him, curious. When he didn't continue the thought, the redhead leaned on Minato's chest, looking at him.

'My uncle knows better because he loves me. Not like you.' Daichi flinched, then turned his head to look at the kid with outrageous stare. That made Gaara budge and hide deeper into Minato.

'What did you just say?' he asked in a darkened tone 'Say it again. Say it!'

Gaara meeped, hiding his head under the vest. The sand murmured on the floor nervously. Daichi looked at him for a long, pregnant moment. Then he turned into his chair to the previous position and stilled.

'You're right, I hate you.' Gaara didn't seem to be surprised.

'Daichi, don't be immature.' Minato said, not even looking at the older man and just adjusting the small weight o his chest. He stopped his pacing to stare at the older man, adjusting again the growing weight. 'Daichi, you are almost thirty, have three children and are Kazekage of a nation. You weren't like this before, so please don't tell me you were more mature as a chuunin than as kage.'

The saffron haired man sighed quietly. Then he slowly turned to both of them, looking at Gaara. The kid looked back with calm stare, not expecting anything, but waiting.

'I'm sorry, Gaara, that's not true. I don't hate you.'

'Why do you lie to me?'

'Because what you say...' he stopped, hesitating. Then he frowned '…annoys me.'

'Then you don't like me.'

'I don't hate you!'

'I don't understand.'

'Maybe because you are not my son.'

That made Gaara look confused. He was always told he was kazekage's son. Was it not true? Then why everyone said that?

'Then whom am I?' I asked, looking at Minato 'Are you my father?'

Daichi groaned.

'No, Gaara, he is not.'

'But he acts like one. Not like you.' Daichi made a face at the floor. Gods, talking with him was like talking with an illusion. You tried to be reasonable with it and yet the illusion maker just laughed at him. The beast really liked to play with him.

'Maybe once you will be my son we will talk.' he said finally 'Can you come to me? You weight a lot and Hokage-sama doesn't like the sand clinging on him.

' 'No.'

'Don't blame me if he drops you.'

'He is better than you so he won't.'

'Gaara-sama.' Minato admonished softly, his arms really starting to strain from the weight. And there wasn't even half of the sand on it. 'Don't say those things to your father. It`s-'

_Cruel?_ Kushina mocked him in her head, making the blond frown again and hug the boy closer, as if he wanted to keep him from hearing it.

'It's not nice. All parents care for his children, they just have different ways to show it. I know kazekage-sama can be stern, but he is a good man.'

'Uncle says father made my mommy like that and that's not really nice.' said Gaara, looking at the blond, then picking some strand from his vest 'Mommy always says she wants out but she can't really because that would hurt me and father made it like that. If I was a good father I wouldn't hurt mother, and now she is really sad-'

Bang.

The redhead stopped, looking at the older man. Daichi sat, starring on the floor, with tightly fisted palm against the wall. The paint slowly fell from it on his knuckles.

'Your mother.' he rasped through teeth gritted so hermetically one barely could tell where jaw started 'Is. Dead. Shut. Up.'

'You always tell me to shut up when I talk about mommy. Why don't you like her? Every dad loves mom and you say like if you didn't. That's not how a good father acts.'

'Stop lecturing me, you screwed up brat, or I'll go and throw you into that water again!'

The sand suddenly stood up with a loud hiss, twisting into hedgehog-like pins as Gaara just stared at him. Then, the kid slowly turned to Minato and hid his face into his vest, crying again.

Minato turned away from the older man, partially shielding the kid- he could get how hard this was on the older man, he really could. It had to be horrible to hear something like that from your own son, but the truth was that Daichi didn't help. And yes, he could understand why he kept away from the little redhead but this kind of attitude didn't help at all. And getting angry at a little kid twenty five years younger than him hardly was excusable.

'You are an imbecile.' he murmured without any real bite to it and quickly walked away, hoping to avoid bad reactions on both sides. The saffron haired man observed him in silence as the blond vanished behind the door of another room and slowly hunched down, hiding his eyes into a palm.

Was he, really…


	20. Chapter Twenty: So beautiful it makes me

'Sensei! Sensei! I think that Jiraiya-sama is finally back with the clot- oh.'

The grey-haired nin entered the room with excited expression. Because boy, was he tired! The mission didn't last longer than few minutes and made only a few scratches, but it was so mentally exhausting that he only dreamed about going to his room and sleeping off every night Minato made him spend on scrolls. He was not used to fighting monsters on daily basis. However, when he saw that there was no blond in the room, even if he spotted him there just a few moments ago, he hesitated. Kazekage looked at him like a hurt animal that was desperate to bite his head off if he ever dared to think about touching his wound with any intention. Which meant pretty haunted.

'May I know what are you staring at?' he asked coldly, not even changing his position 'Why is Jiraiya not here yet. Go after him and tell him to hurry up!'

'I-I will, buh- but I need to Hokage-sama…'

'He is behind those door.' Kakashi scurried there as quick as he could.

'Gee, I wonder what bit him that he acts like an annoyed bee all the time…' he murmured, entering the room. Because really, he seemed to always be eating something sour and wanting to just bite on anyone who talked to him 'Ah, sensei! Sensei, Jiraiya-sama was spotted on the horizon! Lucky!'

'Mhhh?' Minato had managed to calm the little redhead again and was currently hearing him give him a long and drown out explanation regarding why teddy was the best teddy of all the teddies in the world (so far he had a very solid argument, if he said so himself), and he turned to his student with a grateful smile. 'Is that so? Good thing, we are all going to get some warm clothes and go back home, then…'

It was odd for Kakashi to be this excited over something so simple, which probably hinted that the silver-haired boy was exhausted. Not that he blamed him. They had miraculously escaped from a very lethal situation with just scrapes, but the planning and preparing had been horribly taxing, the boy has used sharingan on all clones, and adrenaline highs tended to leave one feeling rather wooly on the bones afterwards.

'How's your head, Kakashi-kun?' he asked, turning to stare concernedly at the younger teen. The grey-haired nin looked up at his own hair, like if it could mean he would see the top of his own head. The he scratched it a little.

'I think I'm going to have brain cancer soon because my eye hurts so bad.' he muttered 'And there's this nasty cold… why do I have feeling I will die because of flu?' Then he started laughing lightly and came closer. Gaara looked at him with interest. The teen was all clothed up. How did he even breathe in this?

'I'm fine, sensei.' he said, waving at the kid. The sand on Minato's arm waved back 'I worry more about my arse, it got the worst hit. But It will all heal in no time and I will be able to run after Naruto again like a strong young ma- hey!'

He backed up as the sand pulled on his mask, brushing it off his face. Gaara looked at him fixedly, leaning on Minato's arm. Then, there was a tiny, tiny eye that opened on Minato's back and the faint, faint smile that went under him and smiled at him, like if it was laughing at all this. He huffed.

'That's not for kids to play!' he said. Gaara turned his face away. But when he came closer, the sand again tried to pull on it, even when the redhead was not looking at him. Once he backed away, Gaara again was staring at him with curiosity. '…brat.'

'Cyclops.'

'Enough, Baby #2 and #3.' Minato said in a faintly scolding tone. 'Kakashi-kun, hand me over those towels and then start getting changed, the last I want is for you to get a cold… I have abused you enough for the past weeks. I don't think I will be doing anything for the following days. If you want, you can have tomorrow free.'

Kakashi looked at him for a moment with disbelief.

'Really?' he asked, taking the towels from the hang. Then he turned to Minato with shining eye 'Really? Oh my gods, sensei, thank you, I'm so happy I think I could hug you now-' The tiny paw from Minato's arm shot at his mask again making him stop in the middle of the run and let his hands down from reaching at them both. '-on the other hand I think I'd rather not. But hooray! You're the best sensei! Oh my gods, a whole day of reading 'Icha Icha Paradise, I'm sooo happy!...' His voice vanished as he practically danced himself into another room, throwing the towels on top of Minato's head without any dignity and covering them with those. Gaara slowly peeked out from the brim of it.

'He is funny.' he stated as the sand slowly made the rest of the towel rise and hand from the blond's shoulder like from towel-horse. 'What's 'Icha-cha Paradise'?'

'He is my funny, precious student.' Minato said calmly, removing the towels from his head.

'And 'Icha-Icha' Is a book you can read when you are older… Now, Gaara-sama.' he said, sitting down on one of the benches. 'My sensei will be here with your clothes in a minute. I need to put you down and get you out of those clothes and dry you off as best as possible, is that all right?'

The kid nodded plainly. Of course he understood. Being wet wasn't nice. That's why he needed to dry off. Without another word he took off one shoe and let the wet sand roll on him and cling to him, his clothes and his hair, making him look like disfigured badly baked cookie. Then he took the towel and put it on a sand, rubbing it and making the towel all wet without drying himself off for one bit.

Minato sighed.

'Gaara-sama. The sand can dry on its own without getting sick, but you can't. We need to take your clothes off and dry you, the sand can dry on its own.'

'Okay, then you take it.' said Gaara and gave Minato the handful of sand, after which, the rest gladly followed. Gaara didn't even look at it as he slowly took off another shoe and looked at Minato. 'My towel is wet.'

Minato stared at the grinning sand in his hands with a blank smile on his face, then promptly opened his hands, letting it fall on the floor with a humid splat.

'You can have mine.' he said, leaving it on the side and crouching to help the boy start taking off the numerous articles of clothing. By the time his sensei arrived –appropriately dressed for the climate, though there a suspiciously persistent sniffle coming from him- he had Gaara wrapped him up in the large towel and was using another one to dry up his hair.

'Thank you for the help, sensei.' the Hokage said, taking the kid's clothing and leaving his own on the side. 'Any news?'

'Sarutobi-sensei already made the delivery and Chiyo-sama has your replacements discussing the virtues of Noh theater of the last century.' the sage said with a sniff, brushing his nose. 'Did I miss a funeral?'

'Hmm?' Minato asked absently, trying to figure which side of the shirt he was trying to help the redhead through was supposed to be the front. 'Your dear friend looks like if someone had kneed him where it hurts then stolen the package never to return.'

'How graphic…' he replied absently, repeating the process with the pullover… how the hell did one know back from front? That's why almost all of Naruto's clothes had a brand or picture somewhere, so he could tell the front from the back. Jiraiya finally had enough and took the garment from his hands, turning it the right way.

'What happened while I was gone?'

'Stuff you will only understand when you get kids of your own.' Minato said, going back to toweling dry the redhead's head gently. The taller man shuddered as if someone had walked on his grave. 'Well, how is it, Gaara-sama? All better?' he smiled at the little redhead, now fully clothed.

Gaara looked at him. The man had nice white hair. He felt like pulling at them. But since he was so big he left the joy to the sand and watched as it crawled on the ends of white strands. The he frowned.

'You smell funny.' he said slowly. He didn't remember ever smelling something like that. Not on Temari or Kankuro. Not on father. Yashamaru – sometimes. But pretty rarely 'Are you sick?'

'Now, that's a loaded question.' The blond said under his breath, looking innocently in another direction and starting to undo the bindings on his arms.

'I heard that.' Jiraiya slapped the tendril of sand trying to touch him, glaring at his student. The younger man just smiled at the other and unzipped his jounin vest, leaving it on the bench. He was about to pull off his shirt when he stopped, eying the sand warily.

'…Jiraiya-sensei, could you take Gaara-kun and go make sure Kakashi is dressed up already?'

'No.' the sage said, staring back evenly at the little boy. Kids were so tiny…

'Sensei… please.'

Jiraiya didn't even answer- he wasn't going to leave Minato on his own in a public bathroom with Sabaku no Daichi in the same country.

'…sensei. I don't want the sand on me.' The sage gave the younger man an unamused gaze, as if saying it wasn't his busyness- when he realized what article of clothing the blond had stopped in. 'Che.' he muttered, turning around. 'Come on, redhead. Hokage-sama is very shy and wants some privacy to change.'

It wasn't until the pair were gone and he was sure there weren`t any golden eyes peering from anywhere than he finished taking off his soaked shirt, taking the towel and starting to dry himself.

'...No, I`m not mad. I just think you could have handled it better.' he said after a slight pause. '...Though you are under much pressure.'

'Let's trade lives and see how well you would do on my place, Mi-na-to-kun.'

The other man was not taking the lecturing from his own kid very well. Actually, once Jiraiya brought him a change of clothes, he almost bit him with his own teeth at new remarks the man threw at him, even if they were less harmful that a poke in the arm. But at least the clothes he brought were actually pretty decent. Not that he thought he looked good in violet or that green pants and violet sweater actually could match (because they couldn't) but it's not like if he was going to march in this for the rest of his were a little too loose for his own likings too, but it was probably because Jiraiya was too afraid that too tight would look too good on him and make Minato suddenly fall for him or make at least approachable.

'_If it only were true…'_ he murmured to no one in particular, slowly folding his wet robes _'I'd walk in thong for the rest of my days.'_

...or maybe not as this was very uncomfortable, and tight clothes in Suna were an instant death to the body, but once in every few nights… But it was not that easy.

He sighed, winding a red-blue scarf around his neck and wearing yellow gloves (only by then he saw where was the joke hidden – he looked like a freaking Christmas tree) and wondering when the rest of those darned people would finally go out from their hidings and let him go to his room to let him bang his head on the wall in peace (or toy with his lighter like a sane person he was, though he doubted that one sleepless night would throw him into a nightmarish fit). If he reasoned well and counted right, he'd finally have to go to sleep – at least once to let his body recover from tattoo-poisoning. And if he knew well those walls of Konoha – he'd have to do it in the closet to not wake half of the house.

'_Maybe that's where I belong.'_ he thought bitterly and decided to go for at least one accompanying person to not make them all think he was running away to who knows where. He peeked around the corner to not get involved in another hysterics of his youngest and…

…oh no. Minato was undressing.

He turned his head away to not look at this, knowing that If Jiraiya caught him on the scene he wouldn't let him forget the fact for the rest of his life (and he would have to stop coming to Suna). But then, the man went out along with his – pretty calm now – son and they were left alone. Oh no…

He stopped for a moment? Oh _no_? Oh yes! It's not like if he was going to get occasion to look at Minato's naked body anywhere soon in the future if actually at all. He slowly turned his head, looking at the man's back as he took off his wet shirt, and he felt his face growing already hot. Gods, how the blond has grown!... The last time he could really measure his body was when Minato was a ninja in academy and he was pretty sure that those muscles weren't there then. It was not as visible even when he undressed for their sparring on the desert – still leaving those materials on his chest who knows why, because it looked so…

He blinked, not knowing what he just saw. Wait, what… what is this? This… this… something…

And it looked pretty damn painful too. On the centre of his chest, Minato had a big, dark… hole? Mark? Or was it supposed to be a scar? Scar? With such a sickly, dead skin around?

He looked at it, petrified. He didn't know any person, jutsu or animal that could leave a gash like that. How the heck did blond survive that? It looked like if it was a fatal poisonous wound, such a skin deep that it left irremovable layer of dark bruise… what was he, another monster? Because only a monster could survive such- He stopped. A monster?...

Kyuubi… Oh, Minato. He leaned on the wall, looking at the naked chest with a dose of regret – he didn't know what it took for Minato to live and survive through the attack, but it looked like a wound from that time. Actually, it was pretty logical. He had to suffer so damn much and he wasn't there near him…

...not that he actually could be any good consolation by then, because he himself was pretty broken, but still. He wondered if the blond could feel anything there. Then he wondered how it felt under the fingers. And then it started to be pretty hot in there again.

And that meant a lot, because hot springs made actually pretty nice temperature at last, so he had no complaints about it finally. The gash looked pretty sad, but this also didn't take away any harm from the rest of the body. If scars were man's make up, then blond had a very unhealthy portion of those at one place and maybe that was why he looked so beautiful, because, just look at this, the muscles moved so fine when he just flexed his arm and those bangs against his face, wonderful… He felt his heart accelerating as he slowly took the whole shirt off and this felt so wrong, because he should have just announced his presence and not stand here like that, hidden, but it was so nice, so beautiful, he just couldn't tear his eyes away and he felt a whimper bubbling in his throat.

He wanted to touch that. He wanted to be close to that body. He closed his eyes. If only he could… could get closer… Now he was getting a little too much excited. He fidgeted a little, scratching his hand and making the oncoming arousal calm down. Great. Just great. Now he has done it. The blond has woken up his libido. Thanks, Minato. He should kill him. And just when he wanted to walk away, he was noticed. Nooo!…

But he had to. He slowly slid from the shadow with the most indifferent mask he could wear and looked at him from half-closed eyelids. He was a kage. He had to be able to play the role.

'You have a lovely kid who loves you very much. Don't talk like if you knew how it feels.'

'You also have a very lovely kid, Daichi.' The blond said, still toweling his own hair, as it kept leaking water on his shoulders. 'And if he didn't love you, he wouldn't have said something so hurtful…'

The blond trailed off, only the faint, musical clinks of silver being hearable as he stared off into nothingness.

'…kids can be very cruel, too.' he concluded after a few seconds, resuming the movement. 'Especially because they love.'

That was the problem with what he did to memories. Nothing ever made them be recalled until a word, an image brought them up- he suddenly remembered a moment only two years ago or so… It had been shortly after Naruto had befriended both Hyuugas and he wanted for them both to come sleep over, which Minato knew for a fact Hiashi would never approve of. Back then it had been hard enough to let the kids meet without half the branch house being around in case his son went berserker. So he had made an excuse after another or days until he finally just told the boy directly it wouldn't happen, and Naruto had fled to another room in righteous anger. The little blond had came back only about an hour later, glaring at him with those eyes that were such a perfect copy of Kushina that it felt completely surreal and then thrown about a bag's worth of confetti on his face.

'I dun love you 'nymore!' Only it wasn't confetti. He still didn't know how, but the little boy had gone through the entire house and somehow located every single drawing he had ever made for his father and tore them up to bits. Minato had stared at the blond for several seconds without saying anything at all- and truthfully, not knowing what to say, and then he had started feeling so weird he had had to get up and start doing things. Fixing papers that were already fixed, changing places where the decorations were, smoothing out a carpet that was perfectly unwrinkled, and all through that weird, weird feeling kept getting to him, and the air was too hot and there wasn't enough oxygen on it and he felt just so weird

He had been stopped by his son suddenly sticking to his leg as he started bawling against it. He had looked at him as if he were a curious little animal that had somehow gotten into his house and kind of crouched down to inspect it. The little kid – barely anything more than a toddler, really - had immediately thrown his arms around his neck and started bawling on his ear hysterically.

'Sorry…'m sorry…. 'm sorry! Daddy, please dun be sad…'

It was then that he understood why he was feeling so strangely, when he actually understood he was in reality quite close to start crying himself- and he didn't know why, because they were childish doodles with colorful crayons, things with interminable legs and tiny half-assed circles for heads, just your average tiny-kid kinda doodles, but it was his son who had made them for him and it was special and have them thrown in your face… Have something that meant so much be so arbitrarily taken away from you for something that wasn't even his fault, when all he had wanted was to protect Naruto… And how the hell had he known how he felt, when Minato himself didn't?

He had pulled the wailing child to his lap and kept him hugged to him until Naruto's cries slowed to hics, and then sniffles, until the blond slept. And then he stayed some more, until almost the next day, when Kakashi came back from a mission and found him sitting in the dark, staring blankly at nothing with his son cradled to his chest. The next day Naruto hadn't insisted about the Hyuugas, for the first time in weeks, and he had been in a drawing spree to replace all the doodles he had destroyed, and Minato had been happy for it, but it still didn't do anything for how horribly he had felt when Naruto had broken all those things and told him he didn't love him. Even when he knew he hadn't meant it, it hadn't hurt any less.

'Kids just hurt us for reactions.'

'My kid hurts to kill me.'

Daichi flashed him an annoyed glare. All this talking about 'making it hurt because of love' made him feel angry.

'You don't know the half of it.' And really, Minato didn't. Gaara usually wasn't acting so bold, maybe because he was not so touchy-feely as other kids or maybe because he was too scared. But all in all it looked like if he was just unable to copy the right reactions. When he lived alone, closed in the space, he just cried and pushed him away or – made him come close just to push him away again. Once the emotionally unbalanced Yashamaru stepped on the ground not caring about his protests, the kid suddenly started to gain human's emotions.

It started talking, started making more painful and vulnerable noises when he cried, started to smile more like human instead of this crazy grin that was not even supposed to be on that face with undeveloped muscles. And once Kankuro and Temari got closer – his reactions varied. Gaara was not learning how to be human. He was copying it from other people.

And it was all to make it worse one way or another. At the beginning all was pretty obvious – he cooed at him and gurgled this babyish cute way and when he just broke and gave in, coming closer, then suddenly was a cry or a hideous smile and he was either hurt or pushed away. With time everything just became more complicated and twisted – but it was still the same. Gaara was not 'loving' because he didn't know what 'love' was or any other human's emotion. He was just luring them all and catching on illusion just to shoot them off like ducks once they all would get too close.

And right now he just found a pretty hurtful way to stab him too. And it did not only hurt because he felt like a fail for a son he never had but also because those things were said in front of Minato who seemed to find something else in that empty shell. And also, because Gaara started to toy with idea of love and talking about love with a monster that just saw right through him in front of someone who made his love life so complicated was like stepping on mine's field. With him stepping around and Gaara just running through with straight line. That couldn't end well.

Of course, his son had something of his son in that monstrosity after all. He knew that when he felt that quickening heartbeat or saw him making completely useless things when no one was around – like hugging his teddy, making cookies from sand or just watching things with that innocent glee on his face while the sand just glared at something else, disinterested. Somewhere deep down there could be his son, hidden and strapped. He felt it and he believed in it – because if he didn't, he would never come to Konoha to try to actually save him.

And it seemed that the kid reached out for him too. And it was sweet, seeing that he still had his kid present and yearning for him. But then it came out weird or scary or painful and he didn't know what to think about it anymore. What was his son and what was Shukaku's doing? He tried not to think about it. Or he'd go crazy.

Minato hadn't got his problem. His kid was a kid, literally. Not a half of Kyuubi glaring at him from the eyes or creepy smile – only a baby that loved him dearly and that was it. He felt tightening in his throat. Boy, was he jealous of how sticky Naruto could be… and now Gaara was shying away from his touch, not even letting him imagine how will it be when the monster will be gone. Gone… He tsked.

'Could you hurry up?' he muttered, looking a floor with all his might. Standing close to him was just too dangerous, he didn't know if the mood he was falling into won't make him too emotional to not make him explode – because the cocktail he had in himself was pretty darn too much. Sadness, creepiness, longing, love, desire and melancholy could never mix well. And only one thing always covered everything up – indifference and anger. Which could only result in coldness 'I'm pretty late with my business in Suna already and believe it or not, I still grieve about the fact I can't come back home just as planned. You're not helping.'

He felt regret he was actually telling Minato to cover up when he just wanted to make him stand still an let him touch, but that was like looking at forbidden fruit through glass – the more he saw the more he wanted it, but he could never touch it. And it made it harder to look away every time.

The blond turned to stare at the other man for a moment, towel lying forgotten on his shoulders and an odd expression crossing his eyes, before getting back up. He could have done something to ease the tension then. He could have made a joke that would lead to the usual banter between them or simply comment on the ridiculousness of the outfit he was wearing (obviously handpicked by his sensei, for the matter) and Daichi probably even wanted him to do it.

'Yes, Kazekage-sama.' he said instead, turning around and resumed changing.

Finally, they went out of the building. Once they reached the main mansion, the saffron haired man locked himself in his room, not caring about the origins of redhead or even about saying proper 'good night' to the Hokage, Jiraiya or even young grey-haired teen (especially young grey-haired teen). It was too much to ask. Then, he hunched over the scroll with seals that were supposed to be found on his back soon. Not like if he didn't memorize them already. But he needed something to work on. So he looked at it. And decided not to think, not to think, not to think… The wolf howled on Konoha's fields, and Daichi yet again mastered his drawing skills with tracing the forbidden seals.

#+#+#+#+#+#

In the other room, Akasuna no Chiyo, the great poison's master, worked over the same scroll. But, in exchange to Daichi, she was not using her hands or even her eyes – she was drawing with her nose.

And how detailed and tiring work it was! The blood ampoule she was given from the older man was very small and every droplet of blood that went to waste was like throwing the gold down the sink. But she couldn't use the bad amount of blood or too little. Because when she used too little, the seal: -exploded (as it did the first time when she only added the little smear on the top of her nail);

-ate through the table and floor (for the love of gods, she hoped that this hole wouldn't go on and on, or soon she would have the well full of lava just under her feet);

-became a smoking bomb (which was not poisonous, because she finally learned that two drops neutralized the side effect of deathly formula, but she couldn't let Daichi look like a fire-man for the rest of his life);

-and finally – produced new life (what an amazing thing the jinchuuriki's blood was, but she was more than happy that after fifteen tries she finally killed those three germs with curare – and it was the last dial she had so it was probably a pure luck as producing curare needed both time and many different kind of plants – and seeing how they grew and munched on everything wouldn't probably let her make it in peace).

Just when she thought that she was not as good as she thought it was time to find this Tsunade who kept on having fun somewhere out there, the seal has blinked at her and made a perfect, purple glint without exploding right in her face. She did it. And it took her only one night till the dawn. So she could call herself a prodigy after all. The rest lied in young Hokage's hands.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Daichi woke up with a gasp. The air was grey, the night was dull and his face was wet. With sweat. He looked down at his hands. He fell asleep on his perfected drawing of the seal that was supposed to be on his back soon. Thanks to his salty tears of body pores it was now so smeared that one couldn't tell what was it actually to be. More like drawing of three years old kid who was indecisive about what it wanted to draw making a poor attempt at cubism.

He sighed. Not that he needed that at all. He just wanted to occupy his mind. And it seemed it worked, because even as he fell asleep he dreamed only about something that hadn't made sense at all, with Kankuro and Temari being the main heroes of it. Poor kids. And they were so happy about having a new brother coming… long, long time ago. Why did he take them to Konoha again?... Oh, yes. Because he was afraid that drunk Yashamaru might do something stupid that will also not hurt him but his kids also. A wonder if his house stood there like he left it or was it already burned to the ground, mixing cider with sand crossed his mind. He felt like he didn't want to know.

He stood up, stretching his muscles and making his bones crack and went to the bathroom to wash his body with those endless amounts of water Konoha had and make himself look just properly fresh. If he knew well, Minato will spend hours on just drawing those damned things, so he could as well look good enough to make one wonder if the choice made in past was actually all that good. He shaved with Konoha's shaving foam (forest scent), washed his hair with Konoha's shampoo (winter breeze) and soaped whole his body with those soaps and oils that Konoha provided (pine, Christmas rose and this gravy scent of wet, fertile ground that watered countries had), just like a good kage he was.

Everyone knew that when you were a ninja, you had to smell like the grounds you were on, so his Suna cosmetics were closed far away in his luggage. Just when he was ending his routine toilet…

'Damn it.'

…the old good 'Leaflets' perfume has came to an end. No wonder, since he used his old, well known toilet accessories instead of what was now sold at markets – watered down and invisible, the nowadays products were just poor attempts at what was supposed to be a good marked products and he didn't trust them. Of course, he was not stupid when he was young and when he had money he bought many bottles of everything other countries provided – some were still not even used at all. And it was a wonderful thing the formulas on them stopped the time so they were always fresh, like if he just bought them yesterday.

Too bad it worked only for girl's cosmetics. He rummaged through his suitcase, searching for additional purse with those cosmetics where he should have some reserve made especially for that fatal day when the Konoha's bottle would end...

…and he found none. What? But he was sure he ordered Yashamaru to pack it!

He drowned in his luggage for a moment, taking out everything that could look like his black manly purse for such things and again – with no luck. What he found, in exchange, was a flowery, blank toiletry bag which he never saw once in his life. And it contained cosmetics, of course. But not the brands he bought. Yashamaru probably has been so drunk he packed him his own things instead of the things he asked him to. No big harm done unless it contained what he needed… He opened the bottle with Konoha's 'Leaf at a Bay' (which he never once saw or used) and he almost choked on the smell. It smelled of cemetery ground. There was no damn way he was using that.

He tsked, looking through the bag, wondering if maybe Yashamaru played with bottles and changed some liquids in them. And he was not wrong. In Mizu's 'Waterfall's vertigo' he felt scent of apples that were grown only in Iwagakure, the bottle made for country of Lightening reeked of foam that was produced only for ninjas who wanted to infiltrate the village of Oto and the bottle with cream contained oil. Damned Yashamaru. Was it a revenge or idiocy? What did he need those for anyway? He sighed, reopening the last glassy vial and frowning at the sandalwood and clear soap. Holly gods. A girl's perfume. What the hell. And no one other than Karura's one itself. He knew them too well as he bought it for her on his own and she used it till the end of her very own existence.

It was supposed to be alluring and tempting as he wanted to find his wife just like that – to be tempting and alluring. And somehow it worked for him because he didn't feel that bad with her in bed anymore – the magic of ninja perfumes. But there was no way he was using also that. He looked in the mirror with grim face. But he was also not walking out of this room with no scent on his body.

He looked at the contents he had. He could either use a perfume made for another village and make a fool out of himself to everyone who would get closer to him or use his dead wife's scent and make even bigger idiot out of himself as those were made for woman and not for him. He sighed, playing with bottles. Ooor cemetery ground. He looked in the mirror. There was no god on this world.

With a gravy expression he slowly opened all the bottles and started mixing them in the closed sink. Gods, he hated ninja chemistry. But if he went out to Chiyo for help, she'd probably give him something that smelled good three hundredths years ago. That would be even bigger shame. After two hours and mixing the leaves of mint he found under the window of his very own room he made something that could be called 'almost like apples but I'm not sure from where and something like a very watered down Konoha's 'Leaflet' since I can feel Konoha here but also I don't know, bits of soap and is this shampoo I'm feeling? No, must be the sandalwood though how come you wear sandalwood, Daichi, as a man? Oh, no, sorry, that must've been a mistake, I only feel mint now'.

He was either a genius or an idiot for wearing that on. Minato will laugh his ass off. But if the girls in Suna were right, this stupid girly sandalwood could at least make a good impression on every man around. He didn't know. He hated it with every ounce of his soul since an hour and half. Very much. But at least he could say he was ready to get tattooed. At last.

So was Minato. Because, damn… His house was-

'Why is it so hot?'

Minato laughed, patting the head of his son, who was eating take out taco balls that where actually supposed to be Jiraiya`s, yet he always had an extra stick or two for his son (or six or seven if it was his son and friends) dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. He didn't even want to know the mess the little blond must have made of his room as he was quite sure they had put all summer clothes away. Which meant there was very likely a very large mess of clothes in the closets they kept off-season clothing.

Not that he could complain… he had resisted all of twenty minutes after placing five heaters in place and litting the fireplace before going to the closet and messing even more the original mess until he found a white t-shirt with fire motifs on the sleeves and a Konoha symbol, both in orange and changed what he was wearing for that plus pants and nothing else.

'Kazekage-sama will be coming over and I'm going to be working on a tattoo. So will Chiyo-sama.' he explained, taking the last ball from the stick when his son offered it to him, then ruffling his head some more as a show of appreciation. 'And people from Suna are quite sensitive to cold, so if we don't want him to die from hypothermia, the place needs to be warm.'

'It's suffataking.' the little blond said, closing his eyes in that foxy expression that was so cute on him that Minato could just squeeze him from it.

'Suffocating, you little animal.' his sensei corrected from his place in the floor. The man had been smarter and was just down to a sleeping yukata with rolled up sleeves, as he would be staying with them for the night. Naruto stuck his tongue at him. 'What he said. Why do we need to make it warmer for him? He didn't make it any colder for us when we went to Suna.'

'It… would have been difficult.' Minato explained, starting to arrange the side table with what looked to be only like a billion different sets of needles and making sure they were all sharp and ready. Nowadays tattoos got done with a five needle setup machine in a matter of minutes, but because of the intricate detail of the tattoo, he would be having to do this by hand, so needles were more appropriate.

'Just please… don't mention it to him.' Because once someone made the mistake of mentioning stuff like air conditioners to people like Sabaku no Daichi, he could have you hours bitching at you about what a waste of energy and resources that was and God, don't try to stop him because that would only make the torture go on longer. Now, if he happened to say that in front of both Daichi and his grandmother… He shivered at the idea. This would easily take half a day. To have two old Sunanians extending on and on about how wasteful Konoha was when compared to civilized Suna was not how he wanted to spend it.

Tattooing was on itself a simple, if detailed process. When younger, Minato had learnt all that he needed to know about it, not that he had worked much on any of them… He found permanent seals to be a hindrance. He had never had anything that required having something tattooed on his skin for the rest of his life. Sometimes he would use henna tattoos on himself (and Kushina and Daichi) as they were useful to carry things around without drawing as much attention as scrolls would have, but those faded in weeks, and if by chance the mission required them to stay on longer, he could easily just re apply the ink and have it last another month or so.

Now this one had to be permanent, at least until either of the other kids were old enough to have them applied on themselves, and even so, having a good warning on one's back to know when the crazy beast wanted to react could always be considered damn useful.

'Daddy…'

'Yes, baby?' he asked absently, discarding a needle that felt too dull and gathering the rest, set them to boil in sterilized water.

'Are you going to use all of those?' he jumped up the counter, peering into the heating water with the amount of morbid fascination kids reserved for pointy objects that they would fortunately be spared of.

'Yes. More than once.' Naruto starred again at the water.

'What are the tattoos for?'

'To set some seals…' he muttered absently, trying to find where he had left the nitrile gloves box, and catching it when his sensei was helpful enough to toss it at his head.

'Seals for what?'

'That… is classified kage information, Naruto.' he told him, picking him up from the counter and walking with him outside to breathe some blessed fresh air. He was so overheated the temperature difference just felt blissful against his slightly sweaty skin.

'I'm going to be Hokage someday, you know.' the little blond told him with a decided expression, lips pursed into a pout. Another thing he got from Kushina. This kid wasn't human, it was a clone of her. She just changed the outer appearance to throw people off trail.

'Then I'll be the first to tell you such secrets when that happens, future Hokage-sama.'

The little blond pouted turned to look around, making a face as he spotted the advancing figures on the path to their house.

'…can I go play with Kashi?'

'No.' he said, depositing him safely on the ground. 'I told you that today Kakashi-kun would have a free day and I don't want you bothering him. Leave him alone to do whatever he wants, he deserves a rest.'

'But I'm all bored…' The little boy whined, giving him a set of puppy eyes to go with the pout. Minato just smiled at him sweetly.

'Then maybe you will think about risks before sending your precious friends to danger next time.'

With a glare and a dark set of mutterings, the blond walked past him and back into the house, making sure to take every step very loudly.

'And don't make loud noises or destroy things, I need to concentrate!' he called after him, receiving some vague noise of reply and a set of slightly more controlled steps. He turned still smiling towards the guests. 'Come in. It's been a while since Konoha had a good torture session on Suna nins, much less its Kazekage. I'll make sure to treasure the memory with the amount of care it deserves.'

Chiyo and Daichi looked at the blond in horror. Minato greeted them like he should, he went outside. The problem was, that he was wearing only light t-shirt and pants. And it was s n o w I n g.

'You're crazy.' said Daichi in faint voice looking at his feet covered in fresh snow, suddenly feeling very discontent of giving his body to such a man 'Do you not need your legs anymore?...'

'What a stupid question, of course he does, get inside, in, in, in!' said Chiyo with sharp voice, catching the saffron haired man by hand and almost kicking the Hokage inside the building 'Such a brat you are, to give us such a scare at the very beginning!...' She looked at him with a serious expression of concerned grandmother. For a moment. Or two. And then she laughed out loud. 'But that's so like you, ho ho ho!...'

Daichi slowly swallowed his saliva, still looking at those wetted bare feet. If that's how blond acted on the snowing winter, then what could they expect from heated up room? It probably would be only twenty degrees or so. F r e e z I n g c o l d.

'I will sue you and make you pay all my debts if because of that I will have to go through not only seal poisoning but all variety of pneumonia.' he said, covering himself a little more in clothes he was supposed to be taking off. But the sole idea of what he just saw made him feel like if the temperature dropped at least for ten degrees more.

Minato laughed at that, letting the old woman usher him inside and closing the door, leading them to the heated up room.

'I didn't complain when you made me go to the cliffs in the middle of midday, did I? There, take off your shirt and lay on the table, I'll be back with the needles in a moment.'

Jiraiya just gave the redhead an unamused glare and muttered a vague welcome from his spot on the floor.

The other man gave the blond an unamused stare, nodding absent mindedly to the sage.

'It was because it was such a nice weather that it would be a waste for you to not see how nice desert looks by then.' he said with steely voice, finally unwinding all the clothes he was wearing on. Gods, what was the old man doing here? He thought his role has ended earlier? He probably missed something while reading the scrolls – no wonder, he was focused like a rainbow in bubble (which meant very little since rainbow was a scattered white light… not that it mattered now, he couldn't turn back the time even if he wanted to). But he had to admit that the heat was very nice, actually, it reminded him of average day in Suna.

Not very hot one, but not cold one also. It seemed that Minato at least remembered how to imitate the weather for Suna tastes. How nice. He looked at the table and the needles – which were over nine thousands there if not more and felt an uneasiness prickling on his skin. He was cut before, stabbed, jabbed and tore, but nobody leaked the poison through his skin in such slow, vicious way before.

He knew that tattoos were not a very hard things and remembered henna ones which Minato used to make on them – but they were just clear, unharmful dots on the skin. And this one, as Chiyo informed him, showing the bottle with black, glinting ink, will just simply make him feel like if someone was pouring acid ants on his skin if she was not wrong. He knew the pain of Pharaoh's ants' fangs. Not a very pleasurable experience. And to have that nonstop on the skin would probably be tiring.

'What are you doing, Daichi, lay down.' she said, not using the formal title while she slowly uncorked the bottle with ink. In the light of the fire it glinted with color purple that in nature could mean only one thing – a very, v e r y dangerous poison.

He slowly took off the last garment of his clothes and sat down on the table. For a quick moment he felt strangely bare as all of those people could see him without clothes, and not many could since he ended his adventure with academy. But it vanished as quickly as it came. Then he laid down on the table slowly readjusting his hair out of the possible way, uncovering his neck bare and closed his eyes.

'Let's get this started.'

Minato's all answer was the snap of latex replacement as he finished dressing his hands and a wide smile.

'Let me know when you need a break.'


	21. Chapter Twenty One: Run inside my veins

They fell into pattern. Minato would work, work and work for about an hour, and then he would stop- because God forbid the great Yondaime Kazekage for actually asking for a pause- shake his hands a bit to let them rest, ask his sensei to oversee what he had done, then shoo him away when he started making poorly veiled jabs at the redhead's state, he'd let Chiyo have a look at Daichi and make sure his state was stable, Jiraiya would come with some newly sterilized needles, he'd slap Daichi's hand away so he wouldn't touch the seal, rinse, repeat.

Around forty an hour into the second hour Daichi had started picking up a temperature, and they had just slapped a standard forehead cooler on his head and made some seals to keep it from picking up too much and he'd continued. Normally, people varied torture because eventually the body would grow accustomed to it. If the way the smooth muscles tensed after too many pricks of the needle were any sort of hint at it, the exception to the rule was poisoned ink. Daichi was no stranger to pain, and much less someone to actually show he felt it. By the third hour the breaks were much more frequent and the redhead was covered in sweat. Minato found himself strangely compelled to wipe it off.

'Stop that.' he said, giving the curious hand another slap.

'Can't help that, it itches.' Grumbled the other man, for a moment looking at the blonde with something close, too close to annoyance and pout. The blond didn't feel it so he didn't know what he was going through so he could at least let him touch… Because he wanted so desperately to scratch it.

It didn't hurt as bad as he thought it would – of course, the pain didn't ebb away nor his muscles got accustomed to it easily – if anything, his body was fighting it with all its might going through first stage of rejection. He felt how his neck was swollen in the place where he was touched making him go through the higher temperature and how fragile to touch it became – and yet, the prickling that was there made him want to claw at it. Not much – a simple massage of the place would probably bring some relief. But Minato just kept slapping his hands away so after three hours he felt how his patience was starting to waver. Because it really felt like ants. Endless acidic ants – with the pressure on ants. Acid was feeling like if it was applied with ice - almost not traceable.

What was worst – was Minato himself. He was used to holding on his body signals and surviving through pain that made one choke on the tongue or even bite it off – but he was never touched so much by blond. Touch, sting, another ant. Touch, sting, another ant. Touch, sting, another ant… He closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth. The fireplace before his very own eyes was feeling like if it was being absorbed by his own skin, seeping through his veins. Along with ardor. Because it scalded his insides so good, it had to hurt. When he was not seeing it he felt more pain than the touch of latex fingers and he could concentrate on itching. But when he concentrated on itching – it itched. It felt like a torture of new sorts as he was never pushed off from the seductive side of touch so much.

And he didn't know how to defend himself from it. So he decided to not think about it. But his body reacted. Soon, he was covered in sweat from being endlessly pushed back and forth between those two factors. He opened his eyes. Oh gods… He moved his hand to touch his abused skin. And again, he was slapped away. Gods, why do you torture me so? I was a good bad boy!...

'This is nothing, just wait for it to start healing.' Minato brushed his forehead, clearing the sweat. It was really too hot in here, even if he had given up and taken his shirt off a little while ago, leaving him only clad in a fishnet undershirt. He tied the bandanna back in place to keep his hair off his eyes and inspected the original designs, inspecting the results on actual skin- so far, so good. Daichi had a net of chakra paths mimicking the central system of Shukaku with a binding seal to work on it. He leaned down to inspect the work again, the needle hovering cautiously over the skin, before pulling back, expression thoughtful. '…should I continue, Chiyo-sama?'

What worried him the most was Daichi's heart rate. The old woman had assured him several times that quickening heartbeat wouldn't cause another heart attack and to stop worrying over useless things, but he hadn't expected the fever to rise so fast, either. The large scar on his chest had been result of a direct attack of poisoned chakra, and he had had a horrible infection, which was the reason it had scarred so badly, but it has still been a superficial wound. Daichi was getting the poisoned chakra directly injected into his skin.

And he had just finished the first half. It was more intricate as it had sutras that were usually drawn in large areas and then crammed into small spaces by jutsu, but that he actually needed to get under the skin, so it meant that he actually had to draw them on scale. What came now was the much thicker and easier job of the lower instructions that were supposed to control it. That was comparatively easier job and Jiraiya would be taking over for a little while he rested, but it was also a much larger surface to cover and a lot more poison to add.

'Maybe we should wait a couple days before doing the rest.'

'What? Already? But it was looking so fine, sensei…'

Near the blond stood no one else but Kakashi. Because man! He was bored. 'Icha-icha' was a very interesting book, but it kinda got predictable after you read it twelfth time and he was yet to learn how to be happy about rereading it for thirteenth, fourteenth and bazeenth time. So he crept quietly inside to bug Jiraiya about some sequel or even quietly untold story, but when the white haired man just kept his mouth shut, gaping at the pair like if they were inspiration of ages, he decided to come closer and take a look himself. And it looked hard – as well to make as to obtain it – the Kazekage was behaving like if he was on a never ending strain even if he always looked like that and his sensei…

…his sensei was so concentrated he didn't hear him coming in. He looked at the base and saw a very cool design that he heard about already but it was first time to see it with his own eyes and admired how precise the blond was. When he got his tattoo it was just a machine quick, careless job, so it was looking kinda half-assed. Here it was a masterpiece of tattooing.

'I'd really like to see you continue, sensei.'

'Someone, get him out of there.' Could be heard from the table in a low growl. Chiyo just kept chuckling to herself as she examined Daichi from affair. To her he seemed to be having just average cold, though probably it was not that easy (if the constant need to scratch was any indication). But as far Daichi didn't moan, wither, babble and even bang his head on the table, so it seemed like if he was doing better than she thought he will. So her poisoning treatment was useable after all.

'I see no reasons to stop, please, stab him all over.' she said cheerfully as the man waved her of with something that could be classified as 'finger', only of wrong choice. Either Daichi was too angry or too polite. But he couldn't do anything to her either way, so she could as well not care about his feelings. And, for example, let the brat stay. Like now.

Minato turned to stare at his student, smiling a bit embarrassedly.

'Thank you, but I did learn from the best. Kakashi-kun.'

'Damn right you did.' could be heard from the white haired man, who finally had decided to get up and come closer uninvited. More than likely just to annoy the man on the table by hovering on his immediate personal space. Other than being slightly more swollen than if it had been normal ink and the redness making it look as if the tattoo was getting done with tabasco sauce, the design was perfect. All sutras and sigils were perfectly symmetrical and straight where they needed to be, and curved elegantly in the appropriate places.

And all that without Minato so much as complying about the way the man in the table squirmed. Jiraiya would have smacked him unconscious by the second hour.

'Good work, brat.' he said, brushing white hair off his neck, which was sticky with sweat. Really 'suffataking' for an atmosphere. How the smaller brat survived it with half his face covered in fabric, he didn't know. And if he was here, where was the smallest brat of the house?

'Thank you, sensei.' The blond said, leaning back and rubbing at his eyes. 'But I think I'm going to have a pause anyway. I'm going blind already.'

He had very good eyesight for his age and a person that went through a whole village's worth of scrolls almost daily, but almost five hours and such an intricate design had already given him a migraine. And the other probably could use the pause. Minato ran some sterilized gauze over the tattoo for maybe the millionth time in the afternoon, staring at it with a slight frown, fingers pulling at the hair in the base of the Kazekage's neck in a way that bordered too much on affectionate for being just pushing it out of the way, making his teacher frown.

'Say, Minato, why don't you give the kid a chance to learn the office?' he asked laying a large hand on top of the grey head and ruffling the puff of hair. 'He's old enough to start learning.'

'Hey, I have my free day, I don't have to do anything!' said 'kid' staring at his favorite author with just a little of a glare. But then he smiled '…unless you write me a sequel.'

Daichi groaned.

'Give him free day tomorrow and make him go out of there or I'm going to do it myself.' he said darkly, looking at the kid with a pained grimace. The disinfection of the tattoo felt like a kick on the natural pain of harmed skin which dulled the itching for a moment, but that didn't mean it didn't feel like if somebody wanted to cut his head off the neck. And by the way, what was Minato doing with his hair? That felt almost like if he was too sleepy to do it properly so he grabbed the strands and pulled them completely on the side. All he needed was falling into sexual fantasies right now. He glanced at the white haired nin.

He didn't know how harsh Minato had been on him. But of anything, the things will probably try to get worse from now on. He closed his eyes and caught the glass with water, sipping another gulp. That was not the main seal, he will survive. Just to kick this man's ass later. He will.

'On Kazekage-sama's back?' the blond gave the pair an unamused glance. 'With poison?'

'Don`t you trust your student, Minato?' the hermit asked, innocently. 'That's not nice, I was more supportive of you when you were his age.'

Kakashi looked at the back of the saffron haired man for a moment like if he reconsidered the idea. But then Daichi shot him a very nasty glare and started to get up from the table. Kakashi immediately hid himself behind Jiraiya.

'…maybe I will wait for release for a little longer.' he muttered, laughing nervously. Daichi rolled his eyes and fell on the table yet once again. Chiyo started to chuckle.

'Maybe let's order something to eat.' she said, standing up and stretching her bones. 'We've been sitting here for quite long… and I bet that Kazekage-sama wouldn't mind something to eat, right?'

'No.' For a moment the glares of two Sunanins crossed, making an unlimited tension. Chiyo smiled more.

'Oh, but Kazekage-sama, you must eat in that state…'

'I said no.'

Another silence, full of tension. Chiyo stopped laughing.

'Daichi.' she said with pressure. The saffron haired man tsked and turned his gaze away from her 'You must be hungry.'

'I must nothing.' he said and moved his hand to scratch the tattoo, but stopped himself just a moment before '…maybe a little bite.'

'Good! Then – Minato, order something for us, will you? Since you're used to standing on snow like that I bet it won't make you any harm to just run back and forth a few meters on the weather outside.'

The Hokage shook his head, disposing of the stained and slightly bloodied gloves in the nearby trashcan, stretching as he did so.

'As Chiyo-sama orders. I'm going to go get baby and take him with me.' Five hours of silence was definitely too much for a quiet Naruto, especially considering Kakashi was here. 'Please decide what you would like.'

'I wouldn't eat too much if I were you, Kazekage-sama.' the sage said once his student was out of ear line. 'You will probably be throwing it up sooner than later.'

Daichi had only shot him another nasty glare. He was too tired to respond.

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'Naruto…?'

Minato looked around the house, trying to locate his son and starting to get worried when he didn't. He passed his room, a place so full of orange that almost made his eyes bleed – because Naruto hadn't only inherited his mother's personality and mannerisms, no… he had also gotten more than ridiculous and unexplained love for that color. Though at least blond went with orange a lot better than strawberry red… - and then through the bathroom and the sharingan user's room. No little blond there.

'Naru…!'

He was about to summon Kakashi, Jiraiya and whatever ANBU were in immediate vicinity when his son finally appeared, walking out of his own room and rubbing at his eye tiredly, a downcast expression on his face.

'Baby, why didn't you answer?' he asked with a frown, looking down at the pocket-sized version of himself plus whiskers.

'…didn't hear.'

'What were you doing?'

'Sleeping.'

In Minato`s bed...? The Hokage frowned, brushing a hand over the blond's forehead concernedly. Naruto had never in his life gotten sick with anything.

Typical temperature for Naruto. Nothing to worry about. Then…?

'It's only 7 P.M. Naruto. You shouldn't have taken a nap so late. Now you won't sleep at night…' The blond shrugged apathetically, making his father worry even more. '…what is it, baby?' he asked concernedly. Naruto stared to the side without answering. Minato waited patiently for several minutes, but just when he was about to give up, the small voice answered.

'No one plays with me and I'm all alone.' he said, his voice dripping misery. Minato sighed and picked him up, a little surprised about the fact Naruto immediately wrapped his arms around his neck and leaned on his chest, not unlike Gaara had done the previous day.

'You are just grounded, Naru. In a few days you can play with Hinata-chan and Neji-kun again.'

'I'm all alone.' The kid murmured against his neck, making Minato sigh and slowly turn to his room to get some warmer clothes for him. He had meant to just ask Naruto what he wanted and leave by himself, which would have been faster. Now he couldn't leave him like this. His son had had such spells of depression before, which happened all the more often before he had met the Hyuugas, but it had been a while since the last one. He had almost forgotten he could get like this.

'I'm sorry, baby.' he said, kissing his forehead as he looked around for something warmer in the mess of clothes the both of them had left. 'I promise I'll take you see the kids when you are done being grounded.'

Ten minutes later Minato was back with his son still on his arms, Naruto acting in the ungodly sticky way when he got in when he was like this, both dressed more appropriately for the weather outside.

'Sorry for the delay, did you pick what you want to have?'

Naruto stared curiously at the design in the redhead's back, then stared fixedly at him for some moments, though he didn't give any sign of acknowledgment. He did, however, wave lightly at the nice granny he had met while in Suna, when his dad made him give her the spider he had found.

Daichi stared back.

'Why don't you bring the whole circus there, huh?...' he muttered weakly. Because really, why not? There were only supposed to be three people as he was informed – him (the object), Chiyo (the medic) and Minato (the one who was supposed to pain on his back). And now there was also the white haired man who was having too much fun with giving him pain in the back – the ants started crawling in group as the thing that was now done didn't need much precision, more like much more filling up. Then the grey haired brat entered the room just to stare at his private naked back like if Kazekage's nakedness was a show off to everyone and now he brought the brat…

Had he got no mercy over him? He could as well just bring the Hyuuga family to just stare some more at his confused state and announce the world that this heartbeat that Minato was constantly asking about was not built on stress only. He was sure those white eyed honorificants could decipher such changes in chakra…

He hissed at particularly nasty sting, trying not to move as he looked back at the blond kid. For once, the thing was not staring at him like if he stole his cookies and threw them off the cliff. With that blank, coddled position he was looking rather cute. Almost like a mini-Minato. He wouldn't mind trying out how such thing reacted to petting.

How nice could it would feel? Were all jinchuurikis the same – the soft skin and fuzzy hair like the day they were born? Would it be nice to stroke such a mini-Minato like his own son?...

…he was sure that nothing on the world could be as nice as Gaara's hair. He closed his eyes. What now – the poison was making him emotional? He was beginning to think like if he didn't do anything else on that world but cuddled babies. Minato really could spare him the picture.

'I'll have this rice stuff.' he said, knowing very well that 'rice stuff' could mean one of two thousands of dishes and closed his eyes. Not that it mattered, he really didn't feel hungry now. Just thirsty.

'Oooh, what a nice kid!' said Chiyo, standing up from her chair and coming up to look at the little blond 'Now who is a handsome grown man there?'

She didn't really like or dislike kids – they were all future ninja to her and she could really careless about the age if the kid could throw a kunai on her. But this one was like a spitting image of his father. She just had to look closer.

'Is this that cute little baby that was said you're having? I could swear it's you with make up.'

Naruto clung closer to his father, though he didn't try to hide, he kept staring at the old woman curiously and even smiled at her a bit. Minato rubbed his back lightly.

'Sorry Chiyo-sama, he's usually more sociable. He's just grounded and feeling a bit neglected.' he excused himself, walking closer to inspect the works his sensei was doing in Daichi's back. 'Would you like for me to ask for sushi?'

Sushi for five could hardly be called cheap and it would take a while longer to get done, but he could leave a clone waiting for it while he went to get ramen for a kid that wouldn't touch raw fish if he paid him for trying it. Suna nins hardly ever got to eat fish after all, not to mention it was very fancy food. Very expensive too, so… Go kage's budget!

'Sushi? I haven't eaten this for ages!' said Chiyo. The man on the table didn't even move.

'He is going to feed us raw fish.' he murmured to himself in disgust. He never ate anything raw. It was enough for him that he got a bad poisoning from not completely dried up meat from Tsuchikage who thought it was rather funny he had to run back and forth to the bathroom while being on the important meeting in Iwagakure. Probably he did that deliberately. 'Why don't you just stop dancing around the bush and order fugu? Not like anything could be more poisonous than tha-ow!'

For a moment Daichi lied in silence, then turned toward the white haired nin.

'For an old man you surely have no gentleness in your hands at all, Jiraiya-sama.'

'I reserve my gentleness for art and beautiful women… None of which you happen to be, Kazekage-sama.' Jiraiya chuckled to himself, changing the needle for a new one. Minato rolled his eyes at the pair, then leaned in slightly and patted the redhead on the head as he often did his son.

'Don't worry, Kazekage-sama. I'll get you some rice balls or something like that.' It really would be better if Daichi didn't eat anything that would settle too heavily on his stomach. They had just started the design after all.

'So I believe you beat yourself up every day while you shave.' muttered back Daichi, feeling like a cat who has got stroked backwards. Really, the man could at least watch for acupuncture points and not poke at his nerves with that poison. The burning was already beginning to nearing the line of his patience and he just wanted to change the position. Why was the man so heated up over his obsession over Minato? Because it was surely what was going through the mind of Jiraiya. It's not like if he was going to even lick that candy through the wrap. That would cost too much of addiction.

He closed his eyes, for a moment wanting to not look at the fire in front of him and then he opened them with a jump, making the white haired man poke his nerve again – this time probably not because of his fault. It was just that his heart skipped a beat so his body had to throb for it in exchange to not let the blood stay still. Rice balls, he said…

'…with umeboshi.' he muttered quickly. He didn't want any rice balls. Heck, he was not even hungry. But if he was going to get rice balls from Minato then he wanted rice balls for him. He'd eat it whole night long if he had to.

The Hokage nodded obligingly and set to get the rest of the orders, which took some good ten minutes for him to get ready to go outside. Naruto was still clingy and quiet all the way to the restaurant (and the waitress had to point out to him he had the sweater again with the back up front) and after ordering and leaving a clone to pick up the serving, he took the little kid to Ichiraku's. Four bowls of ramen did wonders for the kid's general emotional weather, and by then time they went back home, Naruto was simply walking next to him, holding his hand loosely, even though he hadn't started yet. Minato, however, had the feeling he wanted to say something very important.

'Hey, daddy…'

He looked down at the little blond, smiling encouragingly. It took some more seconds of hesitance before he continued.

'…can Gaara come to play when Neji and Hinata-chan do?' Minato looked up at the dark sky, ignoring the softly flowing snow and sighed, blowing a small puff of mist as he did.

'Let's see how it goes with just him and you first, baby. Gaara-sama is not used to being around other kids.'

'Because of his mother?' He stopped at that, looking down at his son uneasily as he slowly crouched down to his height. 'Naru… The sand isn't Gaara-sama's mother.'

'But he said so…!' Minato put a finger to the blond's lips, silencing his protests.

'Yes. And he thinks it is, too. But it isn't the woman that gave birth to him, Naru. Gaara-sama's mother died giving birth to him-'

'Like mom?' Minato flinched, as if struck.

'…No.' he answered after several seconds, getting back up and resuming the pace. 'Your mother didn't die because you were born, Naru. She died because she never measured consequences. She knew you were about to be born and how important the both of you were to me, yet she put herself in danger for nothing.'

'Maybe she wanted to help you…?' the blond asked timidly, looking up at his father. Minato didn't want it disappoint him, but he couldn't help it.

'No… she wanted to do what she thought was right. It never mattered to her if what she felt was right was fair to other's or not.' Because Kushina had always been like that. Maybe she didn't consciously mean to, but that's how she ended up being in the end. She only ever did what she felt needed to be done, without caring if that hurt others. The little blond didn't answer, but he tightened his hold on his hand lightly, resuming looking thoughtful.

'When can I play with Gaara?' he finally asked after a while.

'As soon as Kazekage-sama says it will be okay for you to do so.' He answered blandly, choosing not to give a definite answer. It was still too soon to know how long Daichi would be down because of the poison, and even if the other two wouldn't affect him as badly as this one, he still wasn't sure how long would it take for the seals to be properly activated an tested. At the face his son made, Minato quickly smiled at him. 'Why don't you send him messages, though? As long as you don't make them too long, I'm sure Kazekage-sama will let you.'

Naruto seemed to give serious thought to the proposition, though a deep line of worry was back on his forehead sooner than Minato would have appreciated it.

'Hey, daddy…?'

'Yes, baby.' he said, mentally wincing. Would the 'hey, daddy's' never cease…?

'Why does that man look at you like that…?' For the second time that night Minato stopped, turning to look at the tiny blond fixedly, not knowing what to answer. '…is it another kage secret?'

Wordlessly, Minato leaned down and hugged his son tightly.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Daichi…?'

He brushed the sweaty red bangs lightly, fingers soft now that the gloves had been discarded again. It was around ten in the morning of the next day, and the seals had been finished for several minutes now, most of which he had spent dressing the sore and swollen skin. Jiraiya had dragged Naruto to bed around midnight despite protests and Kakashi had gotten kicked out when he started nodding off around five in the morning. By then the sage and him had been deep into the design and Jiraiya had gone to bed just an hour or so ago, while the elder for all appearances dozed off on her chair.

He had offered her a bed earlier in the night, but she had declined, not that he wanted her too far away from the older male, and strange as it might sound, Daichi had more or less nodded off a few times while they finished the last seals. Not that he thought he was gotten used to the pain, just exhausted. Naruto had woken up at some point while he fixed the discarded materials around a bit and had, incredibly enough, brought a glass of water for the Kazekage. Minato was now in the process of very carefully helping the redhead into an upright position and getting him to drink it.

'Come on, I'm finally done.' he said, bringing the glass closer to the older male's lips. 'Have something to drink and then you can finally go rest.'

The other man looked at him in silence as he slowly took the water and drank in slow, long gulps until he saw the bottom and hit it. It felt somewhat good that he could water down his throat that was being drying up so quickly for the last night. The rice balls that he tried to stuff in his stomach hadn't tasted bad but it was like if every bit he took was bigger than the last one and after seven hours he could swear he still felt the sour taste of umeboshi laying in his stomach.

That was unnerving. But even after such a long night and exhaustion he barely took now as a kage or even tiredness of his own eyes that demanded the sleep of him somewhere in the middle of the night – he was not feeling sleepy. The adrenaline was starting to kick in now, making him strangely livid as well as on the morning light as the fact his body finally changed position. And also the fact that Minato was so close. So close…

He caught himself before he made his hand lay on the hand that was helping him up – it was so fragile in comparison to what this white haired pervert was doing it almost felt womanish if not womanly at all. He had an urge to just close his eyes and lean onto the arm near to him… But instead, he just looked at him. He felt a little sick, the pain on his neck now dulled, as well as the itching has vanished – but the icy acid from hours ago was starting to grow more and more annoying with passing time. It was almost like if it wanted to dig through his skin, muscles and bones and get right through his front, and yet, it didn't, just spicing his skin in one place.

He moved his fingers just to touch the skin around the tattoo and he almost broke the glass with his teeth. It was too swollen, too hot and too painful to touch. Maybe he shouldn't do that for the time being… He looked at the blond with concentrated gaze and slowly took the glass from his mouth.

'I'm not going to rest.' he said quietly. 'I don't even feel tired. I…'

He stopped, unsure. He felt tired. But then, he knew he couldn't just lay down or he'd go mad. His body wanted to move.

'I just have to do something.' he muttered, slowly wiping off the sweat from his head. The blond was touching him there probably just to piss him off. Had he not learned that his hair were untouchable by the fact he made him fry in the tower three months ago? 'I will lay down later.'

'Count sheep, you really need to rest.' Minato said, still practically sticking to his side in fear the redhead would collapse. Despite it, he helped him put on a loose shirt that buttoned up front. 'And don`t even think about using chakra for anything. At all.'

It would make the tattoo react. That, wouldn`t be pretty.

'I need to do something!...' hissed Daichi, turning to Minato with desperate stare. He couldn't... count the sheep, for god's sake! He'd go nut if he just have to lie down and live through that. Why was the blond\ acting like if he didn't know that not doing anything made one concentrate on pain? 'At least me take a walk or read something, I'm going to suffocate if you'll put me to bed now!...'

His hand sprung to his back again and fell down on his side in recognition. Somehow, he had a need to touch his back, like if his body was forgetting that touching the pain made the pain stronger. Freaking poisoning. Minato gave one look at his son, who was eyeing at them calmly from one side of the room. Naruto was still being oddly quiet since the previous night, but the case of depression seemed to have passed at last.

'Fine. Let's go for a walk- Naruto, do you want to come…?' The little blond quickly shook his head and continued drawing on the stray piece of paper he had found. Gaara's dad looked really sick. Really sick. He was sweating and looking both pale and flushed at the same time, and every now and then his whole body would bend in one big shiver, even though he didn't look like if he felt too cold anymore.

And he looked very angry. No, he didn't want to have to go. His father sighed, looking a little disappointed. He didn't want to be left with Daichi alone in this state, as he wasn't sure what would happen.

'I'll be back soon. Don't make too much noise, everyone is really tired.' Himself, to top the list. His eyes really were killing him, and everything looked kind of fuzzy on the edges. Helping Daichi into a jacket, he put his own as well and helped him outside, into the still crisp air of mid-morning. he couldn`t believe it had only been less than a day. It had felt like weeks.

Daichi hadn't noticed Naruto in the room before. The blond was sitting quietly and drawing, which made him almost invisible from his eyes as it was a little hard to focus in this state of lividness. He looked at him for a moment.

'What is he doing here?...' he muttered, noticing how the kid denied the offer and kept drawing 'Shouldn't he be in bed?... Little kids should sleep now…'

When the freezing air hit his warmed up skin it didn't feel as biting as he thought it would. More, it felt refreshing, even by his standards of cool air. It would almost feel strange if it wasn't so fine. He felt a little better by the fact that something was helping him with his bothered state. He turned to Minato. He seemed to be a walking dead. No wonder since he was working for almost twenty four hours with small breaks. Such job could be tiring.

That would be so selfish to drag him in that state outside. Not that he thought he needed any help. Actually, now he felt pretty fine. Fresh. His back still hurt and the jacket touched his neck in a disturbing way but it was… better.

'You don't have to come with me.' he said, going through crystallized snow 'I'm a grown man and you're falling dead. Go and rest, I'm going to just… walk around.'

Or maybe even jog around. He just felt like he had to use the chilling excitation he felt. Yes, running a circle would probably be good…

'Don't be stupid.' the blond muttered, following him outside. As if he would let the man out of his sight for a moment until he knew he would be resting. Which didn't seem to be going to happen for some time now. 'Daichi, stop touching your neck, you'll just make the gauze stick to it and mess the ink.'

'I'm not touching it.' said the man, absent mindedly toying with collar just behind the tattoo and looking around. This way? This way? Or that way? All seemed to be just as appealing. And shiny. And crunchy. And breezy. And full of fresh air. And they just begged to run on them. 'I would never destroy such work.' He muttered quickly, pulling on that collar a little too much even for a kid in kindergarten 'Do you think I'm stupid?'

Then he looked at Minato and dismissed the question without even waiting for an answer and just moved forward with quick step which turned into a light jog trot. Almost like if the pain was behind him and not reaching his back. Almost like if it was an inch from his skin… It burned, like hell it burned. It felt too hot on his back, too stingy. Absolutely not something that belonged there. But when air hit his skin he just felt it was not all to what his body was supposed to feel. Not all… He turned around, seeing that Minato was not by his side.

'What are you doing, if you want to keep me company then hurry up!'

'Have I ever told you you're crazy?' the blond called after him, taking his hands off his pocket and breaking into a loose jog to follow after the Suna nut. 'Friendly reminder: you are!'

But at least he wasn't curled into fetal position and muttering incoherencies, which was enough to make the blond relax a little. Not that anything said it wouldn't happen in just a few hours, but even so, it was always nice to be reminded of just what was Sabaku no Daichi made of.

'What are you talking about, there's nothing better than a nice jogging after a tiring work. Have I told you how I made a bet that I would run through the north side of our desert to get a porcelain doll for Kankuro? I did? Then listen again…'

He ran and he talked and talked long about the sun that shone impossibly bright just into his face, about the sand that turned into hard surfaces and mountains of dust, the blueness of the sky and how the wind almost made him feel like if he was going to die, but the sandstorm passed him by meters, about the oasis he found but that was so muzzy he could slice it with knife and chew on it like at pieces of baklava, about how the salty drains ran through his side making the air impossibly salty and letting him lose orientation and how it was hot, hot, hot…

'…it was so freaking hot I swear I haven't lived through that temperature through my life.' he continued babbling, not even letting Minato interrupt his words 'It had to be seventy degrees, there was no possibility I could stand on sand with bare foot and even stop because my feet were too hot even through material of shoes and the air was making waves like if it was made of water and I saw mirage, beautiful mirage…. It was a piece of green land I never thought I'd see again, so full of life. And then I realized, that it's hot too and that I just want to be home and that Kankuro is too old to have such expensive toys and that I was not going to get it anyway so I…'

He stopped, looking at the blond with widened eyes. '…what did I do then?'

He ran for a moment in silence, looking at the blonde like if the other knew, then shook his head and started talking again.

'…as I said, the sand was so hot even through materials of shoes but I was not bothered and I ran anyway until I reached the shore of the last oasis. Then I rested, because it's so hot, why it is so hot in this damn snow? I think I should stop running, because it made me almost too sweaty and if I run more the chakra may leak out and you said yourself it would be no good as the demon would react or maybe know… it is a smart beast so I'm sure he would react, he always reacts, when he looks at me with those black eyes I know he knows something and I don't know what and sometimes I wonder why did I do all of this and now I think that it was not worth it but after all everything I do is just a spin to make it worth it so I hope this will be worth it.'

With that he just stopped and undid his scarf, treating it like handkerchief for his sweating forehead. He looked at the ground. Strange…

'Have we not been here before?... I shouldn't be so tired already…' he muttered, then slowly unzipped his jacket. He felt a little too hot and it was not so cold anyway 'Are you sure it's going to work? This should work, right? Tell me it's working…'

Minato let the man ramble. Why shouldn't he, he knew perfectly well how much poisoned chakra could hurt and either way Daichi was too nervous and needed some outlet for it. His mind insisted there were other things that required less talking (and clothes) and were much more therapeutical than just listening, but as usual, he just ignored them. That was just the effect of several hours bent over sweaty, muscled back talking. It even made him imagine Daichi had smelled faintly perfume-ish at the beginning of the session. He just followed his friend up and down the small forest close to his house, keeping himself at a prudent distance to be able to catch the man in case he tripped and far away enough to avoid immediate and random violence. His right hand was sore enough as it was.

When Daichi finally seemed to run out of rant and stamina, he just gave him a good push in the back, being careful to do it near his arms and nowhere near the irritated are of his upper back, making the older man fall face first on the snow. He then carefully kneeled down next to him, patting his head. 'Of course it will work, you imbecile.' he said calmly. 'I did it. Just concentrate on not dying until it works.'

The other man looked at him through silted eyelids while laying full face on the snow. It felt too cold even now, but his strength was going away rather quickly, which resulted in making the body temperature rise as it was usual with long running. He lied on it for a moment more, just starring at the blond, for once only leaving his face to look at the hand that was patting his head. It felt so nice to be touched in that funny, nonviolent way by that man. He looked at the snow and closed his eyes as he slowly rose up, kneeling also and dusting himself of the frozen water.

'I told you to not touch my hair.' he said in a threatening, but a little too weak voice to make it sound angry or extra cold 'I'm not going to die anyway. If nothing killed me till now then there's nothing that can do it now, unless someone will go and directly stab me in the back in my sleep.'

He looked at the snow again. Then he pulled on his collar with force. His back was stinging. It would be good to make it feel colder… for sure…

'Can I lay on my back here?'

'Sorry.' The blond smiled apologetically. 'You can't get the tattoo wet at all until it scabs, and even after that, you can't let it get too wet or it will get ruined.' He chose not to mention Daichi liked being touched by him and always had. In his weakened state, who knew where an actual jab at what happened between them might lead.

'So I thought.' said the saffron haired man, still pulling on his collar and slowly turning away from the snow behind him to look at the snow in front of him. 'It just feels so strange…' He sat in silence for a moment, breathing in cold air. It was still looking so tempting… tempting… he had to stop thinking about shoving the damn snow down his back… but it looked so tempting… He turned to Minato. Damn.

Now it looked like some sort of completely different but just as nice sort of temptation. But then he reminded himself he was not supposed to touch that and he turned to snow in annoyance. But this looked so cold and so tempting… He felt his back beginning to itch.

'How am I supposed to wash down all this sweat?...' he asked slowly pinching the white surface just to form a small ball of ice and taste it. It felt also good as cold water. He mused for a moment. Then took a little more to lick off his hands. Thirsty… he was running for quite some time and now he felt thirsty. A lot. 'I suppose you don't have a good amount of sand that would stir my wounds anyway.'

He looked at the blond again.

'And what if I'm going to die?'

He haven't thought about this possibility and it felt ridiculous to even consider it. But just to ask that question. Poke him about it. He knew he wouldn't probably gain anything by that but he just wanted to hear the answer. The usual 'I would laugh at you' style, the 'I don't have time to come to your grave' thing and maybe even 'I would kick your ass if you did'. Because that would be reassuring at least someone would be saddened after his death.

'Like you do most of the time in Suna, with a rag and a basin of water.' Minato said, his tone vaguely mocking. 'I thought you Suna nin's loved to sweat…?' He watched as Daichi ate the snow like a kid would do, like he himself had done not a full week ago when he had been so worried something might have really been wrong with his friend he had gone all the way southwest to intercept him, only to find it was just a replacement and he had actually let the original safely at home. And really, what had Daichi been aiming for, if not just piss him off? His hand went to his neck and massaged it, even though he could even remember what having had it ripped open felt like. All because the idiot hadn't liked being called brother. He had clung to the clone, then.

'_And what if I'm going to die?' _

The blond didn't answer immediately. He didn't even seem aware to have heard the older man ask anything at all, much less such a loaded question, and in the morning air, the only thing audible were the faint chirps of winter birds. After a while, Minato finally reached for the redhead, fingers digging in the small amount of snow he still had in his hands and breaking at it apart.

'…I'd be disappointed on you.' he said, his smile almost sad as the last bits of crystallized water melted. He squeezed his fingers lightly over the other's hands, then let it drop to his side, looking away and deliberately creating distance. '…I'd be alone.'

Because Daichi was all he had left from then. Before it had been the three of them, and now...

The saffron haired man stared at him. His hands twitched at the remembering of the touch, feeling stirred. He felt how his heartbeat accelerated even against his will as he looked at the blond, breathing faster. It felt so awful he almost let out a whimper. What was the man saying? Alone?

He wanted to just wrap his hands around him and hug him there, maybe even coddle a bit to which he was not even used doing, but it felt just right. But instead, he just turned his head to his hands and started pulling on finger where, years ago, he wore wedding ring (which got buried along with Karura's body). He moved his mouth without audacity, wanting to say what he really felt – that there was no way the blond would be alone because he has always, always and would never, ever and even if he won't, ever, then he won't let him be alone anyway, but…

…how strange would that sound? He closed his mouth. Too much pushing on luck, on emotions he was not supposed to feel and Minato was not expected to have. He watched the serene snow with glazed over eyes and slowly dipped for another portion of snow, eating it slowly. Disappointed… He threw the snow at the man's head.

'What are you talking about? You always will have your lovely spawn. Don't say idiocies…' He scrambled, getting up and brushing off his hands like if he wanted to wipe out the touch of Minato. Which wasn't possible, by the way. 'Let's head back. I'm tired…'

And he really was. Somehow, his excitation slowly wavered away. Now he felt only uneasiness and too much warmth around the disturbed, stinging back. And Minato probably needed a rest too if he talked like that.

Minato waited. He waited like he always did, laying still and calm and waited for a sign, a chance, a symbol of something that would tell him it was all right to do this, to think and feel like this. All through his life he had had problems adjusting to changes, much less taking risk and provoking them; and to think of causing them himself was still a terrifying concept, because if he did, the responsibility would be all his. And maybe because he wanted to trust. Maybe he really wanted to trust in Daichi and know that he wanted him exactly as much as he thought he did, maybe he wanted more than what he could get out of tortuous little games that made him feel as sick as he felt addicted. You could trust reactions, words never were the same, but maybe he wanted words after all-

And would it be so bad he did? Was it really that much to ask for? He waited, and like always before, he waited for nothing. All he got was the usual burn of anger on his chest, that dark and bitter sensation on the mouth of his stomach (and oh, almost as if he had drank the ink, as if it distilled on his veins). If he had to say anything, why did it have to be that? Naruto wasn't Kushina. Having a son he loved would never take back what he had lost, the same way that the stupid idiot he had next to him could never have been replaced by his wife or son, no matter how alike and differently he had liked –loved, still- the both of them.

He carefully brushed the loose snow from his hair, without really turning towards the other.

'Yes. You really should go rest, Dai. You will need it.' Yes… It was nice to remember what the Kazekage was really made of.

The other man slowly turned to him, frowning. He did it again. Why was he doing that?

'Don't call me 'Dai'.' he said leisurely 'It's not like if we're in love.'

He stood there for a moment, then slowly, very slowly he moved his hand to brush one of the forgotten pieces of snow from blond's hair. It was already heatened by warmth of the skin so it melted against his fingers, changing into a drop of water. He put it in his mouth and turned toward the house he was supposed to rest in. Stupid Minato. He hated how he could not hate such a man. It felt disappointing he could do nothing. He proceeded in backing to his room.


	22. Chapter Twenty Two: All you need is love

Daichi slept for five hours. He couldn't remember really well how he washed himself, but he didn't do it completely right – every piece of his skin on the back of his neck was raging mad and begged for anything but attention. He brushed around the swollen, reddish brim of skin and almost hurled in pain. In the warmth of the house his body seemed to warm up as well and also add to the feelings he had – not numbed by frost, his nerves simply announced every feeling he felt. And it felt like if ants just melted against his skin and decided to play with burning and piercing him with hot, leaking acid. If he didn't know himself, he'd think something was trying to grow out from his back – like thorns and needles. Covered in snake's venom. So he did what he could do the best at this situation - he tried to sleep.

It worked for awhile. It was calm and peaceful, letting him rest and letting him find peace at last. It felt almost like heaven. Until he accidentally turned on his back. He howled in pain, unconsciously, half dreaming, not knowing what was going on. He sprung into sitting position, searching with his hands for a scorpion or a poisoned kunai that was supposed to be there and almost cracked his teeth with a held whine as the brushed skin just shot back at him with feelings. He felt fire. He felt his back b u r n.

He looked at the clock. Near the four p.m., if the sky was any indication to the end of the day. He got up, feeling sticky and warmed up like if he was laying nonstop in some heatened up stove with broth and went to exercise a bit, just as his doctors said he should. That made him feel like at academy, where he was training nonstop under the heat and sweat and he was practically falling on his face. Every push up required a big amount of strength and left him exhausted like if he just ran a mile. He counted to miserable fifty and let it go, breathing on the floor, sweetened up but a little chilled. Then he washed himself again in cold water, making also the temperature go down. And that felt bearable.

Next four hours he spent on reading the scrolls and revising the documentary he send for to Suna as he was delaying his come back and the pile on his desk was not getting any smaller as days went by. Then the feeling of uneasy warmth came back and made him feel a little fuzzy. After another two hours he felt like if he was starting to turn his brain into a pudding goo, when the grey-haired teen came.

'I have letters for Gaara-sama.' he announced clearly. He looked at him through half closed eyelids, wondering what the heck was he talking about. Someone sent letters to his kid?

'From who?' he asked, massaging his forehead. He felt beginning of headache as his head was impossibly hot while his legs felt cold like if he kept them only outside, no matter what he wore.

'Hokage-sama's son, Namikaze Naruto-sama.' answered the teen, smiling at him with this one visible eye. He sighed. Oh, the kid again played in childish plays of theirs…

'Give it to him.' he muttered, waving the jounin off and resuming his work. Kakashi nodded, getting up from submissive stance and went out.

'Thank you, Kazekage-sama. I hope you will get better.'

He shooed him with a wave of his hand as if he was doing something much more important and erased the thing from his memory. Kids were only kids after all. Even if the one he had didn't want to have anything in common with him. He read the scrolls for another half an hour. Then the letters started smearing before his very own eyes and electricity lamp was beginning to shine a little too bright, abusing his eyes already as he was only used to oil lamps and he decided to go back to sleep. His body needed the rest after all. So he slept.

But it was not a peaceful sleep this time. He tossed and turned, waking up every time his back touched the bed and falling into dream haze yet again. When finally his consciousness slipped, he dreamed of demons that had him binded and burned his neck with acid, throwing at every visible part of muscles and meat a hearty portion of salt. He writhed and shouted and bit at his own hands to get free from that but he could do nothing. The torture continued until one of the demons with golden stare hadn't announced it was over and let him go. He walked the world then, still feeling wounded and hurting as the salt just stuck and grew into his wounds, making him feel never-ending pain.

He woke up startled, because the last he remembered was the fact he just ran and ran and ran and then he fell and there was no floor-

And he woke up. He woke up – and immediately closed his eyes, because the morning sun was presenting itself to him in all its glory. He groaned in pain as the winter light seemed to be particularly nasty and bright – even brighter than the most merciless sun at the peak of its cruelty in Suna. Then he slowly crawled out of bed, feeling like if he just came out of the carousel as his steps were unsure and unsteady and almost blinded, he slowly covered all windows with curtains. Why had nobody told him that the sun in Konoha could get so awful like that?

He came back to bed a little quicker as he didn't have to cover his eyes and sat on it, breathing in and out. He felt like if he just made something extremely difficult and needed a moment to regain his strength. Like if walking on the room was an activity for muscled men – and that meant men with much bigger muscles mass than him. He brushed the thought aside and went to exercise, but after seventh push up he just fell on his face. His arms and legs were not supporting him anymore and he felt incredibly weak. Like a newborn baby.

He decided to not push on his health anymore as his back was still working with burning for his pain and went to the bathroom to freshen himself up. Which was not a completely good move, because when he finally – after two hours applied the perfume on his body he felt so repulsive he just had to go and lay over the toilet and retch out some saliva.

'Almost like a pregnant woman.' he thought bitterly, still feeling sick at the smell of the chemicals. Then he slowly crawled out of the room and went to rest after this awfully hard task on the bed. Gods, didn't he deserve that…

After some time (which could be hours or minutes, he didn't know. Clock was too far away for him to see, not that he felt any good with laying with his eyes opened) gran Chiyo came to his room to serve him breakfast (which he didn't feel like eating at all, even if she assured him that it tasted like homemade) and water, which he drank greedily, but only till the second cup hit the bottom. Then he felt like if it was too much for him and just stared at his grandmother, barely understanding what she was saying, wincing at her too loud laughter and trying to breathe through his mouth as his nose felt just too dry. After some point he also stopped focusing on her, closing his eyes as it hurt to held them open for too long and just let himself be touched and examined.

After taking the temperature with a quite cold thermometer he heard: 'Daichi, you have a fever…' He chuckled a little. Fever? Sunanin had a fever? That was unheard of.

'How high?' he asked weakly.

'Very high.' she said bitterly, but he didn't really bother with that. It didn't really matter. He just felt how his back burned, warmed him up, made him sleepy…

After another bunchload of time, he was laying with cold compress on his head and jutsu that was supposed to seal off the fever. He felt a little better after that, but also the pain became more annoying and he couldn't just nod off into the dreamland.

'Where's Minato?...' he asked beyond himself, but the old woman never answered him, just going out of the room. Maybe she hadn't heard him after all?... He tried to talk in volume that didn't hurt his ears…

After some time, the annoyance began to reach the highest level. He felt hot, hot, too hot!... He discarded his clothes on the floor, top of the pajama, then down, his socks and gloves in which he usually slept in this cold place. Then he just uncovered himself, not carrying if anyone saw him naked or not. But it still felt like if he was being burned… After another few painstakingly long hot minutes he just went and opened the window to the snowstorm that seemed to be happening outside. It was not very violent, but it was windy, and the wind was actually pretty good feeling against his skin. He wore his pajama pants and went out to stand in this coldness and he felt so much better, so much, much better… he breathed in and out, smiling. Maybe winter was not so bad after all.

He stood there for maybe three minutes, until he was suddenly pulled inside and ranted at by angered Chiyo, who decided that things that felt good were not exactly good for him and made him eat until he felt like if he was going to vomit (who would have thought that the whole piece of bread with a plate of soup could be that much to one?) and covered him till he sweated like a pig. His back was starting to send now a very nasty signals – like if someone was jabbing him with a short knife there and pushing a wriggling finger inside just to make the feeling worse. Stop, repeat in another place after three seconds. And so on.

He turned into his fetal position, trying to avoid touching his back with anything – be it cover or bed and he stilled, waiting. He felt so… so…

'_Sick?'_

'Shut up, Kushina.'

'_Why should I? It's my house. You're the guest of my husband. I can walk in and out and you can't stop me…'_

'I said shut up.' he muttered again, weakly. 'Because I don't have my lighter.'

'_Too bad for you then.'_

He watched her, as she walked around the room, looking through the drawers and messing with his scrolls and documents. She seemed to be completely carefree and happy, like if she belonged here and she did. She laughed. He saw why. She was looking at the scroll.

'Leave this.' he muttered, not having strength to even move from bed. She smiled at him again.

'_What, this? But this is pretty funny, how you made mistake and you try to repair it. You never did that.' _

'So what, you're not to judge me. You're only my hallucination.'

'_Yes I am. What else have you learned by that, Daichi?'_

'That you're dead and can't be here.'

'_Correct. But it's my house and I can be wherever I want. You feel me here, don't you? It was me who made those arrases, who sew those curtains. I'm everywhere. Even if I'm not there.'_

'I don't care about it.' he muttered and winced, feeling the jab of pain again 'Leave me alone. You had your time. And Minato… Minato…'

'_What Minato?'_ she asked, turning to him with her strawberry red hair and glinting gaze. She looked so young… _'He is not here, right?'_

Daichi didn't answer, looking at the floor.

'_He is not here at all. He has forgotten about you.'_

'_Or maybe he doesn't want to remember.'_ he winced as he was hit in the back by someone and it was no one else but Karura. She smiled at him, poking him there with a needle. Poke. Pain. Silence. Poke. _'You're mine, even if you don't remember about that. You never loved me, but I loved you and I won't allow you to be happy._'

'_This doesn't matter, he doesn't have his feelings returned.'_ smiled Yashamaru from his bed front. He wore his usual apron _'You have nothing to worry about sister… he will suffer.' _

'_He already suffers.'_ added Kushina with a smile _'Tell me how it hurts, Daichi.'_

'_Feel it, Daichi. Burn for what you did. You deserve every ounce of the pain for trying to erase what you have done. I suffered so much more.'_

'_I hope you die, I hope you burn, I hope you suffer through your turn…'_

'_Tell me how it hurts, Daichi.' _

'_And you will not survive that, you will die and you will land in hell where I am waiting for you and suffering still and you will suffer with me, me, me, not anyone else…'_

'…_I hope you g__et sick, you stupid dick…'_

'_Tell me how it hurts, Daichi.'_

'_And then no mercy will be shown upon you because no god would want to take a pity on the being like yo__u…'_

'…_and I hope you crash, I hope you cry…'_

'_Tell me how it hurts, Daichi.' _

'…_because you deserve nothing more than that!'_

'…_oh, for the love of gods, just die…'_

'_Tell me how it hurts, Daichi…'_

'It freaking HURTS!' he yelled, tossing madly on his back, not knowing what to do with himself. He felt that even if he felt incredibly hot his teeth clattered and made his whole body shiver. And he was alone, alone in this haunted room, house… life… 'I don't want this… I don't want this…' he murmured, looking at the ceiling with glazed over eyes and turning his head to the side.

'I know, Daichi, I know.'

And then something cold was applied there and a blast of light which hurt his eyes, but made his body temperature lower in a few seconds. After he opened his eyes once again, the light was not bothering him just as much. He breathed, sweating.

'Gran.' he muttered. Chiyo just nodded to him.

'That's quite a fever you had there, brat.' she muttered, still applying the medical jutsu to him 'I just readded some cooling to keep your temperature at stable level and it should be better right now since I saw that your wounds are not spreading anymore…'

'Spreading?...' What was she talking about?

'You had a net of burns all around your back.' she muttered, closing the technique and changing the towel 'But it stopped spreading. The temperature shouldn't rise more, as for now at least. The technique will sometime wear off.' she said and gave him a glass of water. He drank it slowly, feeling like if someone had just pushed him through a very tiring marathon. Now he just felt fuzzy and quite warm…

'How about light?' He winced. Light was still a no-no. The lamp was turned off. 'Rest now, then. We will be observing you.' she said. We?... Oh, there was a pair of other medical ninja there…

He sighed. And he slowly fell into the cover, feeling the softness. His back still hurt. But for now at least, if he was very, very careful, he could lay on it without stirring another portion of pain. His body was adjusting. He looked at the ceiling with glassy eyes. Oh, for the love of gods, he hoped that Minato hadn't screwed up anything. And that it really, really worked positively, not only in negatives. The beautiful, beautiful blond… He closed his eyes, imagining him in the calm winter light. Kushina could have had the world and everything. But at least that was his to have. And his alone.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'How did Gaara-sama like Naruto's gift?'

The Hokage had pretty much locked himself in his office after finishing his work on the Kazekage's back. He had to prepare several documents on regards of the information Suna had supposedly traveled to bring here, add the ones Jiraiya had brought as well, and then spend a delightful afternoon behind doors having the council nibble at it like if they were picky wolves tearing some carcass apart. Like his own.

They had spent hours interrogating him as if they wanted to make sure what he was saying was the truth (as if he weren't perfectly able to lie his face off without even batting an eye!) and then started digging out details as if Suna could really be trusted on their information gathering, why the Kazekage had dispatched one of his clones, why had they brought the monster Shukaku with them and why he had allowed it… Yeah, the council had never been very happy about the friendship he and his wife had had with the Yondaime Kazekage. Compromising loyalties and all that. Because he hadn't nearly died to save their asses just five years ago at all, instead of taking what mattered to him and fleeing somewhere he would be safe and well received. Like, lessay, Suna.

Strangely enough, he hadn't complained about it and stayed even more than what he should reassuring and buttering up the old farts, and then excused himself to go work on missions and reports, as they had been pushed back a bit because of his troubled schedule. Because he needed to do something to keep himself from going to the Kazekage's residence and doing something to him. He wanted this stupid, hurtful game to end, but he wasn't ready for it yet, and he couldn't do anything about it until he was unconscious (or out of his mind).

'Oh, he was beyond grateful, Hokage-sama.' said Kakashi in official tone but with cheerful smile on his face. 'In other words, he was happy much, he wanted to come with me to answer Naruto.'

And it really took him twenty minutes to persuade it from the little redhead, saying that 'grounded' didn't exactly mean only sitting in one place or that the fact he was the one to bring the letter meant that Kazekage approved of all his guests and ideas. After three pouty tries to unmask his face, Gaara finally decided to give the blond his answer and started drawing on the floor, asking if the jounin could bring a whole stone to Naruto's home (after he thought that the kid might just be doing something just monsterish that didn't really stain the said floor).

After long lost searching for paper, the redhead decided to give him a piece of sand which seemed just like a piece of sand, but was labeled as an 'answer'. He was vary to bring it back, but decided it would not be good to make the kid sad as with every pout the sand seemed to come closer to his feet and not in quite friendly way. But he decided to not give it to Naruto yet.

'Gaara sent some answer to his friend, though I'm not sure if that could be called like that. ' he said, slowly taking out a piece of deformed sand which he kept in his pocket in handkerchief, which made the thing jump from it on the desk and wiggle like a strange shuddering jello 'I think you should inspect that first, sensei.'

'Whyyy, if it isn't the cellulitic weaver.' The blond said, staring at the moving sand with a wide, happy smile. 'What the hell do you want to do to my baby?'

The sand smiled and then suddenly spilled all over the desk, making a flat surface. Then, at the top of it suddenly an eye appeared – but, strangely, it was not resembling Shukaku's eye. More like an average eye of every human person. Slowly, the sand shivered as it moved and looked at Minato. Then, a very light but visible lines of channels started forming on it.

'Hello, Hokage-sama. Is Naruto home?' it wrote. The eye above the text blinked.

Minato drew back at the sudden movement, and was left staring at the sand for several seconds, before turning to his student and pointing at it, expression clearly asking.

'Are you seeing what I`m seeing?'

Kakashi moved closer, looking at it in astonishment as he checked it out with sharingan. The sand wavered, making the clear surface and shivered again, making new text.

'I wanted to tell Naruto I will go to eat that ramen animal with him if he says it's so good.'

'I think this is connected to something else…' said Kakashi, lightly poking the eye. It closed as under the text was suddenly drawing of something like if someone printed a whole hand on the sand and the additional text: 'Dun touch that, this hurts!'

'You are going to lose a finger like that.' Minato murmured, pulling the jounin to his chest and keeping him there by wrapping his arms around his shoulder as they both leaned in to peer at the sand curiously. 'Ah, sorry, sorry… um… Gaara-sama?'

The sand wavered, making another clear surface.

'Hello, Naruto's dad.' it said simply.

'Hello, Gaara-sama.' The blond said in surprise. He could... actually see with such a jutsu? What a useful technique! How come they didn`t have those kind of things when they would have been useful? He smiled at the sand, more naturally this time. 'How is your neck feeling? Is the nightmare-pain gone?'

'It doesn't hurt anymore.' said the sand, then a small drawing of the teddy started to show near it. But it stopped at the point of adding second paw. 'Mommy says it's not a nightmare pain and that I should kill you.'

'Ah, Badger-chan says that?' any sweeter and Minato`s smile would be dripping syrup.'If it`s gone now, what else but nightmare pain could it have been?'

'I don't know…' suddenly the sand wavered and two black eyes showed on it along with a big smile. 'B L O O O O…' it started writing in horrible big letters that looked worse than a writing of the first grader. Then it vanished. 'Sorry, mommy wanted to see and didn't want to wait for her turn.'

Minato immediately had the teenager behind his back instead of in front of him.

'That`s okay, Gaara-sama. Don`t worry, as soon as Naruto is done being grounded, I`ll let him take you to the ramen stand. In the meantime, I`m afraid that while I like you very much, I don`t like the sand at all.' He smiled at it. 'Please make it leave, as it shouldn`t be in my office either way. I will let Naruto know you got his message and your reply.'

The sand stayed still for a moment. Kakashi guardedly peeked from Minato's arm at it. The sand shivered.

'I'm sorry.' it said and swirled, making a piece of disfigured, wiggling sand that just rolled until it made a suddenly big leap and jumped at the teen. Kakashi moved fast, cutting it in two, but it formed into whole piece and vanished into his pocket.

'Don't tell me I have to bring it back, sensei…' he said, looking at his mentor with unhappy face. There was snowstorm outside and he didn't feel like going out on this coldness at all. Minato stared at the smaller male and ruffled his hair lightly.

'No. I should provably pay a visit to kazekage-sama either way. How is his flu doing?'

'When I came to ask for permission he was doing pretty well, looking through some post from Suna or some political documents I didn't dare to look at…' muttered the teen, slowly fishing out the handkerchief with sand from his pocket 'He seemed to be pretty busy because he shooed me out of there rather quickly. But to me he didn't look like he should have been sitting near the desk, more like laying in bed.'

The small amount of grain was offered to the blond as if he was holding some dangerous rat by tail. The sand remained still. Minato leaned in slightly, smiling at the offered handkerchief.

'Well, Badger-san… if you want to get back to the rest of your flabby body, I suggest you to behave.' He waited for a reaction. When none came, he pocketed the handkerchief back in his jounin vest. 'Good, I like to see we have an understatement.'

Turning to his student, he patted him on the head affectionately.

'Thank you for the hard work, Kakashi-kun. Please let Naruto know that Gaara-sama has accepted his invite and that they both can go in a few days. I need to finish some documents, and when I do I will probably go meet with Kazekage-sama. I don't know when I will be back, so please take good care of Naruto.'

'Roger.' said Kakashi, clapping his shoes together to make them sound more serious and he moved out of the room in searching for Naruto. The blond would probably be more than happy for such a talking letter, but he agreed with his sensei – the smile of that black eyes were pretty creepy. He wouldn't allow that near Naruto too. 'Naruto, I have a message for you!...'

Minato stared after his student, the smile staying in place even after he had left. It was easier to keep it there, as he wasn't sure what would happen if he let it drop. Those seals had to work. His hatred for the One tail was irrational, as it was completely based on the one he had for the Nine tails solely for belonging to the same species. Demons. Things without hearts, just a sort of sick, sadistic intelligence that preyed upon humans solely for amusement. It almost made him want to keep the little bit of sand solely to amuse himself by torturing it.

Buy it a collar, call it Timmy, and maybe set it on fire whenever he felt stressed. The smile widened at that. If it weren't for the fact that he needed to sneak into the house undetected, he would have decided to engage exactly in such an activity. He had lots of stress to work out after all, and it sounded quite therapeutical. In fact, it would have been a brilliant idea, especially considering what he would do.

_(__You are cruel, you know…?) _

'Shut up, Kushina.' he said softly, slowly leaning back into his chair and staring at the white landscape. '…I would have been nice to him if he had let me.'

His eyes hardened slightly, even as he leaned further in the reclining chair.

'I won't let him run away from me this time.'

For better or worse, that part of his life was over.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Fingers on his hair, pulling the sweaty strands sticking to his forehead gently loose and combing them away.

'What a sight to behold, Kazekage-sama.'

The saffron haired man slowly opened his eyes and looked at the blond. What now?... He felt pretty sluggish in the position he stilled himself in. The pain on his back slowly throbbed with more or less rhythm, but it was more bearable when his temperature was a little lower than before. He didn't look after the fingers, even if he felt them on his skin. He looked directly at the face of man.

And it looked pretty dangerous from the way he remembered Minato's moods. He slowly looked to the side, trying to find the clock, but seeing none. He got back to the previous position. Damn, his dreams were pretty monotone.

'Now what do you want?...' he muttered, looking at him with indifference 'I have no idea how the story about prince ends. If it were me, I'd toss him into the well so he wouldn't have to at least look at those people…'

He sighed, looking around leisurely, then getting back to the face. He hadn't spotted others anywhere.

'Tell Kushina that death is not an excuse and... and others that I have no idea how to please them so they can shut up. And you…'

Something was not right… usually, when his visions touched him he could only imagine their weight or heat of the skin as it was just nontraceable… but here… here… He felt Minato's chakra entering his room… Minato. He looked at him for a moment, with wide eyes, then he scurried away from the touch like if it burned him, not caring if he actually disturbed his back that way.

'What are you doing here?' he asked in faint tone. If that Minato was real… and he was looking like that… Something was very, very wrong. For him. 'I haven't noticed you coming in.'

'Yes.' The blond replied, not really answering any of the questions the older man had uttered. Apparently Daichi had been hallucinating. Pretty strongly, as his wife had been part of it, and if the face he had just made at him was any sort of clue to it, he probably didn't want to know about. He sat on bed, not making any sort of attempt to move closer, even though he liked the way Daichi was curled away from him. He had openly come in a little while supposedly to deliver the sand to the little redhead, spent a few moments making conversation first with him, and then having a talk with the elder. He got informed over the fact the Kazekage had been very sick for the past two days, and was just now breaking out of the fever, though his vitals were strong.

After that, he had declined the invite to wake the Kazekage to see him and had insisted to let him rest, after which he had left. At least his clone had.

'You know… You have this tendency about showing yourself to me at your worst, Dai…' he said apathetically, almost as if he were commenting on the weather. 'Think about it… you let me see you sick, you let me see you hurt and in pain... You got drunk when you always made sure not to drink too much because you never could hold your alcohol… Why should you always show yourself to me at your weakest…?'

He slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, still staring at Daichi almost in the same analytical way as he did his work scrolls, completely calmed and in full control of himself. For now.

'…always placing yourself in positions where I could do anything I wanted to you. Have you thought about it…? Anything I wanted…'

He looked away to the side, licking his lips in a way that suggested he was almost tasting the words. He didn't turn his head, but his eyes- darker, more threatening than usual, turned to fix at the redhead.

'I can't help but think that's what you actually want.'

'What I-…' The other man stopped, starring at the blond with wide eyes. What was this? This… reaction?... He never remembered seeing Minato in that state, in such… provocative position. He did act sometimes like if he was playing the fishing with him, putting himself in the place of decoy while he was supposed to just watch it and squirm, knowing, that if anything, that was not done on purpose. But this… this… what was this… scandalous… sexy… image… He felt like if anything, that was more of a lure than everything else done before. But that was completely not right. And those words…

He felt seen through. No, he was not doing that just on that purpose. He did that, because a friend or a lover, Minato was close to him.

'I didn't invite you to look at my weak state now.' he said dimly, slowly building up his defensive stance as he let his shoulders relax. He was Kazekage, dammit. Not a freaking rabbit. Running away was not going to do since he was not on his territory 'And I was not doing this because you could do whatever you_… 'wanted'_ to me. It just happened because I knew you won't kill me even if I will slip on something and stop protecting myself and-'

He stopped, feeling pushed by the strangely fixation that blond made on him.

'…what I want…' he said slowly, raising his arm and pointing at the door '…is you to go out. Now.'

'I could do that.' The younger man said, moving back to a standing position and taking steps to the door, eyes still staying on the dark ones of the redhead. '…I can.'

A few more steps.

'I can even forget about you. I'm good at forgetting, but you must have figured that out by now…' Minato smiled a little. 'I could forget you exist, Daichi. I could forget you were ever born.'

Daichi moved nervously, letting his hand fall down on the pillow and holding onto it like if he wanted to tear through it to his own skin.

'What are you talking about?' he asked with a high level of disturbance in his voice 'How could you just… all this… that we…' This was just wrong. Wrong, disturbing and out of nowhere, and he didn't know how to approach it. Especially, that even if for a moment he took it seriously

(denial is such a handy tool)

he knew – for god's sake, he knew – it was true. Minato was always _weird_ like that. It made him break out the sweat – the cold sweat of fear. If there was anything on this world, he wouldn't let this to happen. He slowly took a deeper breath and regained his posture.

'Don't joke around, that's not funny.' he muttered, then rose his hand again, pointing at the door 'I'm sick. Leave.'

But Minato didn't leave.

'I suppose I would know I once was teammate of the Fourth Kazekage…' he continued almost thoughtfully, finally stopping when he touched the solid wood of the wall with his back, staying there and slowly placing his hands behind his back. 'But nothing much besides that. I wouldn't remember what we did. The missions, the academy, the time we spent together… As it never happened. As if you hadn't even been there.'

Daichi stared at the blond in silence. He seemed to be waiting for him to continue, but only because he didn't know how to tell him to stop to continue on talking and… not talking. This was going in a bad direction, he didn't like it at all, but he didn't know what exactly was the point of this and if he was left with no answers, it would eat him alive from the inside. Because the truth was just around the corner, he just really didn't want to look at it.

But it rose his level of insecurity to a quite dangerous peak. He didn't believe that the blond could just do that, forget about him and all they had, even if it was not sweet peas and roses all the time, of course not. And yet… He hadn't remembered about him for the last six years, that was the fact. The strange creepy expression he was wearing now also didn't help. He eyed him, searching for any signs of joke or amusement on his face, but he found none. It felt so…

(maybe let's stop here)

Scary.

(I'm scared)

It felt just like then, when he held onto the letter he would rather not know what contained and that breached their relationship for years. He slowly moved his head, staring at the quilt.

(I don't want this to happen again)

'What are you playing at?' he asked in quiet collected tone. His hand shook, the traitor 'Why did you come here? I'm not… feeling very well and I can't understand where is this going.'

'I'm not playing at anything, Kazekage-sama.' Minato said, his expression back to the careful nothingness of before. 'I'm done playing games with you.'

Daichi's arm stopped shaking.

(Gods, I'm not ready for this)

Minato tried not to enjoy the redhead's reactions too much, and tell himself they were just because of the fever. He didn't succeed on either account. 'Why would you want to be my brother, Dai? You never did before… Do you really want me to call you my big brother…?'

The redhead twitched, feeling his shoulders go tense even if he willed them otherwise. He was sick

(find an excuse)

tired and burning hot

(let's stop here)

hot in that absolute negative way. He tightened his fists on the quilt, trying to break out the tension, but tensing even more because of that – grateful lack of logic - all he wanted was to leap out from there and wait until he would have answers ready, think of something decent and politically approvable. Something – anything, that wouldn't make him look like a miserable man he was. But how was he supposed to do that when in past few minutes all that could found in his head was 'please, don't leave me, don't leave me, _don't leave me_' chanting everywhere instead of witty remarks? He closed his eyes.

Maybe if he just stopped for a moment and calmed down – this would all make more sense.

But Minato didn't let him.

'Should I go back to calling you _sempai_?' he muttered after a pause, seeing he was not getting answers. He was really having too much fun with it. This question actually startled Daichi and made him look at the blond even when all he wanted was to just look away. He looked at him, feeling the fright creeping at his back. What kind of question was that? Was it a test if he understood what Minato said earlier well? But he didn't understand anything from it! At all!

'Why would I want you to do that?' he asked, feeing, that even if he tried, his voice wavered a bit, sending something like a beginning of a laughter at that. Was that a joke?... Could it even be?... 'We're not in academy anymore… you don't have to call me that… we're both kages, we're even…'

Minato's expression suddenly was predatory.

'I don't know, Daichi… Why would you want to be my brother?'

Of course Daichi didn't want to be called sempai. He himself had asked him to stop doing it shortly after the strange distance between them had started to ebb, back when he had been assigned his captain. Because honorifics created distance. Distances Daichi hated and would have done anything to get rid of, because back then he always fell a step behind them. He probably was a step behind them, too, but that was solely his fault, and he had to let him know that now so he'd just stop running in circles and look at him once and from all.

'I buried him when I was four, and you can't replace him. Why would you want to replace a dead person?'

Daichi watched him with a fright, not daring to move. Only a high rate of breaths that ran through him was an indication he was not a still doll. He slowly curled and uncurled the hands on a quilt then moved his hand through hair to calm himself down. It was not working.

'What are you talking about?' he breathed, turning his gaze to look at something, trying to figure it out. But his gaze didn't stop at anything in particular and it came back to Minato. He never once wanted to be his brother, it was more than obvious. He got labeled like that when he tried to move in front of that line to cross it and he just stayed there, as links of brotherhood were sacred. If Minato saw him as his brother then he was no one to break through that, it would be a sacrilege, a blasphemy. He only could try to change that vision, but obviously, one way or another, he didn't manage to do that. There was Kushina and he… he was a dear friend who was reminding Minato of his brother. How was he supposed to know that this brother never really existed?

'I never…' he breathed, catching his forehead by hand for a moment, feeling how warm it was. It was so hard to think up a decent answer that wouldn't go into a dangerous ground and start throwing flames at each other, especially at his poorly aimed feelings. 'I never wanted to be replacement for your brother or… anyone at all…' Not for this nameless persona, not for Kushina. He knew that if somehow Kushina would suddenly die while Minato and her were together, if he ever found a way to get into a suddenly empty seat in the blond's heart there would be never ending streams of comparisons – your hair is red like hers, your eyes are not like hers, your behavior is like or unlike hers… he didn't want that. That's why he didn't let her in once he had an occasion. And he could even if she loved him…

He closed his eyes.

'I just wanted to be… me.' And not anyone else. 'Me, Daichi.'

'You were you. You always have been.' Minato's eyes had always been darker than Kushina's, and they had never looked any more steely than now. Who else could Daichi ever have been? 'Why do you think Kushina always competed with you and not with other women? Imbecile.'

He finally looked down to the floor, messy bangs breaking the unmerciful stare.

'But you didn't do anything about it. You never did.'

Daichi looked at him for a moment, then he slowly slid from the bed's wall forward to catch the glass and drink from it, barely containing his teeth from clinking against the cup. His body trembled like if he was going through heavy state of ague and he didn't want the blond to notice so he tried to calm himself down, but it seemed to not work. He clawed with his other hand to the forearm of the other hand and tried to stay still, drinking, trying to take his time. He didn't know what to think about it. Was Minato trying to drive him out of his mind with guilty? Like if he didn't feel that already… he swallowed the water and looked at his knees remorsefully.

_(Please, don't go there)_

_(Please, don't go there)_

_(I'm going to lose my mind)_

'Why should I do anything about you two?' he asked quietly. He never suspected Minato saw through that competition, he never thought he watched them doing that. What was this, a sign of waiting to see who was better? Cruelty? 'You two looked so happy together…'

Just then he caught himself he admitted he actually wanted to do something about them. He gritted his teeth. Well, of course he wanted. He burned from jealousy day and night. For a long time. But that was not right thing to say, not a right thing to think about. Minato's hand rose to cover his face, that soft and somehow macabre set of laughter escaping his lips, shoulders shaking slightly from it.

'So what? Couldn't I have been happy with you?' His voice was almost like something out of a joke, yet he was completely serious. He was enjoying this far too much. It could have been done with more subtlety, with much more dignity, but yet, he just liked it. Liked seeing how with every pin the man writhed under his stare, like a bug on a needle – agonizing and yet, completely helpless. There was no point to it, just pain and pleasure, desirable guilty. He felt like a dirty old pervert, and somehow, that was it. The dirty old pervert under the skin of a pure loveable hero everyone loved. Centimeters away from the mask, the perfumized scent. Only two people on the world seen past through him, because they were too observant and too sick to their own good. In the end, who would love a monsterman?

Another monster. Fragile beings never survived through. He finally stopped laughing, though his pose didn't change at all. It was several minutes before he spoke again.

'If you had kissed me at the cliffs, I would have let you.' If Daichi needed to have him bludgeon understanding into his stubborn head, he would. 'I would have kissed you back.'

Daichi budged and froze, the glass slipping from his fingers and rolling to the edge of bed, wetting the covers with that little of water that was still left inside. He looked at Minato with wide eyes for a moment, then curled in the corner and covered his ears with his hands. He didn't want to hear that. Not something like this, not something else. It was like a nightmare, only real. How was he supposed to live that down with his everyday paranoia?

'Don't talk anymore…'

Minato looked up at the other man, expression indecisive. Daichi… Did he really think he could just stop him now?...

How dared he? Did he really think all of this was just about himself anymore?

'If you had kissed me before that, I would have let you, too.' And how many chances had there been? How many times had he just conveniently forgot things that had happened between them, simply because he was too angry at Daichi, too hurt about things that hadn't happened- 'If you had asked me to come with you, I would have!'

Because now he couldn't do that anymore; now he was a Hokage, and tied by duty to this village he had sworn to protect. He had a son to rise, and he couldn't take him away from his home… But back then there had been no attachments, save for his sensei and those two redheads that drove him up a wall day in and day out. 'I wanted you before I wanted Kushina, but even then you didn't do anything…!'

Daichi lied through whole thing, curled around himself, trying to block everything from hearing, but the more he wanted to shut it off, the more he heard. It was as if his body was betraying him, and he couldn't even stop it from doing that. He stilled, slowly taking away his hands from his ears as it seemed to be pointless and just listened to everything.

_(I want to pray)_

_(I feel so sick)_

_(If I'm not dreaming, I want to pray)_

Why was he telling him such things? Was it because he wanted to hear them? Was it because he was sick and Minato wanted to comfort him in that weird, sadistic way?

_(Keep telling yourself that)_

'Lies…' he muttered, feeling that if anything, that was not possible, he couldn't go that way the blond was showing him because he remembered… remembered well how he was left alone at the party, how Minato ignored him, how he didn't react to his pleads, how he always reacted to Kushina… always Kushina. '…all lies…'

He slowly rose his head, spotting the empty glass on the edge of the wet covers, but he didn't notice the dampness.

Oh, how happy he had been at the wedding, sporting that pregnant girl and handling her on his hands, how proud he was she was pregnant, how cheerful, when his heart just bled ocean and he couldn't do anything… and now he was saying he had his chances?

'That's all a LIE!' He caught the glass and tossed it at the blond, not caring if it hit him or not, wounded him or not. More, he wanted him to be wounded, to shut up and to stop spewing out such things, because it felt like if the bleeding was not enough, Minato just wanted him to suffer for what he felt and it was not even his own fault, because if he could he would have stopped that feeling that didn't bring anything good for him only longing and wanting and despairing at nights…

_(You just like to suffer)_

'Why are you saying that!' he howled, standing up from bed, feeling that his body reacted even despite the weakness and how his chakra flared even if his back answered with angry burn that felt almost like a punch in the swollen place 'I didn't do that on purpose! You wanted me? Bullshit! You never wanted me!'

He threw the pillow at him as he couldn't find anything valuable at the hand, then another. The skin on his neck hissed like if it was burnt but he didn't even notice that.

_(I want a knife)_

'I always went through so much for you and her for all I never could have had and now you tell me I could be happy? You liar! Stop screwing with my head!' he screamed, getting closer to begin his usual technique, 'Khamsin'. 'You could have let me? Of course you couldn't! What is this? Let's kick the sick till he bleeds or what? You damned bastard!'

He executed the technique, feeling how it bled strangely through his fists, making more and more of his back burn, then he tripped and hit the wall, not even scrapping the surface, but feeling the crack in his knuckles. The damned seal… he needed more chakra… He turned to the blond, catching him by the collar and tossing him on the door that were closed from the inside. He couldn't fight him in that state. Even if he wanted to make him bleed just as much as he made him.

'Why did you come here? To laugh at me? Very well, look how miserable I am! Is it so funny? Have you got enough for an eyeful?'

He tossed him at the wall again, but then he noticed that Minato… indeed, was smiling.

Oh, that was going far too far. Daichi gritted his teeth, feeling that if anything, he couldn't look at him anymore. It was one thing to love him from affair, and other to be slapped like that when he couldn't even defend himself '…get out.'

Minato didn't move. He just looked down at him, the smile upon his lips cold and vicious, the epitome of sadism. He thought for a moment he was mistaken, but the icy look didn't vanish even when he looked away from it for a moment. His breath hitched; in his head echo chanted in panic at what was he going to do. He was going crazy. He heard voices. Voices of 'I love you so much' and 'don't leave me' and 'don't do that Daichi, you don't want that' and 'please, please, just love me…'

'Get out!' he howled, opening the door, pushing him outside with all his might 'If that's how you want to treat me!...' His throat tightened more against himself, cutting him from his speech for a moment. And even if he really, really tried, he couldn't, just couldn't stop the tears from falling. 'If that's how you want to treat me then get out! I will manage without you! I always did! I don't need you that much! And not such lies! At all! Goodbye!' he screamed and slammed the door close, breathing heavily, until his body led him by itself to the bed, where he just lied like a bag of stones, feeling the angry burn on his back, and the temperature rising dangerously as his body trembled.

How dared he!...

Minato on the other side of the door smiled even wider, anger burning in his eyes. He might have looked like a mad scientist – just a bit too mad maybe – but… yes. Yes, yes. Finally. Finally he had managed to break the last straw, he had made him admit it, and it had taking him almost twenty years to do it, but finally… He broke him down and it was beautiful, because it was just _that_ awful. And yet… he had the nerve to fight back!

He stared in horror as Daichi stood up and started tracing hand seals.

'Daichi; wait-!' and if he hadn't perfected it in the academy, he might have stopped him from executing the jutsu on time, but the shortened version was too fast and even though it caused him literally no damage, it caused the seal to flare into activity.

He was still trying to stop him when the redhead took advantage of his imbalance and pushed him through the door. Even now Daichi was so strong and for some reason that only made him madder - what right did he have to say those things! What right to cry and push him away and reject him now…? He just stayed five feet from the door, staring at it with a wide-eyed expression, his smile slowly vanishing from his face. It took him several seconds to turn to stare at the cloaked figures that were the ANBU service of Suna. Oh, yeah. He hadn't been exactly quiet. Neither had Daichi.

'Baki-san.'

'Hokage-sama.' The other man looked at the blond warily, still not letting go of his defensive stance. Of course he understood what was going on even if confused ANBU partners of his didn't. But that still didn't mean he was still well paid for that. It was second time he had to stand against the blond Hokage. 'I'm sure I escorted you to the exit. What are you doing there, disturbing Kazekage-sama's resting?'

Minato turned to him with a disarming smile.

'I was concerned about Kazekage-sama's condition and decided to turn back.' he said calmly, turning to face the bodyguards, but only staring at the jounin. He was the one that called shots after all. 'Good thing I did, too, I'm afraid he has upset his condition.'

Understatement of the century… Good thing he was here, though. He was the only one who could stop the seal. The chakra was not supposed to be used as it would cause the seal to flare in activation and react without a real cause. Sure, he had been the cause for Daichi to do something so incredibly stupid, but he was also now the only one who could stop it.

'Don't worry, I will fix most of it in a minute, I'm good handling the flu. Either way, please summon Chiyo-sama. She should have a look at him as soon as I'm done.'

And if Baki knew anything about him, he would understand, that meant no one got in until he went out. The man eyed him for a moment in silence. Should he let him in?... It was nonetheless truth that something strange was happening with Kazekage's body, but the fault was surely not the youngster's only. And, as bad as the man treated him, he didn't want him to be hurt. He narrowed his eyes.

The idea of Daichi being ridiculously more than friendly to the blond man was no more than crazy but true. But was it really all right to leave them alone in the room together? Since the thing started to be more or less obvious to him as Daichi was behaving like a madman when it came to getting closer to the Hokage he pitied him, thinking that if anything, Daichi was right – not having the possibility to get closer he had to defend his sanity from not jumping at not suspecting anything blond. But now it seemed he was not as innocent in the whole play… Was it really fair to let him go through that whatever was running through those blue eyes? He let the breath out.

No, it wasn't. But maybe if he did, he'd learn that it's more important to pay more to those who kept more secrets to themselves than to those who just mindlessly cut the throats of everyone around. It was a shame he was paid almost as much as the ANBUs behind him. He nodded slowly and turned his back on him.

'Kazekage-sama is not feeling too well so he is going to need more medic treatment. I need you to find Chiyo-sama and bring her here.' he said out loud to ANBUs. The figures nodded, hesitating, but they scattered away quickly. Then he turned around to Minato yet again. 'He might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but if your treatment is going to make him feel worse, I'm going to come in.' he said and marched three steps away, leaning on the wall. From that distance no words would be understandable, but no scream would be missed at all. Then he closed his eyes. He really was out of date to get involved in such affairs.

A somewhat cold look passed through the blue eyes before they closed into the amicable smile.

'I'd be nice to him if he let me.' he said, turning to the door and allowing himself a moment before opening the door calmly and walking back in, though what he really wanted to do was give the thing a good, solid kick and send it flying through the room – hopefully right into the Kazekage's bed, preferably, on top of the before mentioned Kazekage - but then what would he close behind him? Especially if he would get rid of this muffling jutsu along with the door knob.

He stared at the figure lying on top of the bed, sobbing hysterically, and winced at the smell - singed cloth and burnt skin. Nothing that you wouldn't find in a battlefield, but being used to it didn't make it any more enjoyable.

Daichi hadn't noticed the blond coming in. He sobbed, being so swallowed by his own pain, that if any ninja wanted to come and stab him in the back, he would be probably successful. He just didn't know what he needed, wanted and could handle anymore. He wanted to take the words back desperately and at the same time to keep the blond away as far as possible, because every thought of him just hurt and because he could think only of him, it hurt too much. So he cried.

He wanted to say sorry but he didn't know to whom – to Kushina for trying to hurt her husband, to Karura to betraying her like that, to Minato for being so violent toward him or to himself as he betrayed everything he wanted to do.

'I never thought you would be the one to compromise a mission by disobeying orders.' Minato said softly. That had always been Kushina's role in the team dynamics. He walked to the window and opened it, letting some cold air into the room - probably not the best for Daichi's health, but it needed to be aired before the smell concentrated - and walked back to bed, making a face at the clearly distinguishable shape of the tattoo on the light colored pajamas the older man was wearing.

The other man tensed, as if he was whipped by the words. So, Minato had guts to come back and catch him on the moment of the worst weakness, and that were pretty unmanly tears. He'd have to slaughter him.

And yet, he didn't move. The blond carefully ripped his pajama down the back

_(what is he doing)_

and peeled it off the his back

_(I'm breaking your neck)_

The tattoo itself was okay, if you ignored it flashed purple with ever beat of the Kazekage's heart, and red lines of what might have been confused as infection trailed from them almost all the way to the middle of Daichi's back.

The seal had activated itself, after all. Daichi was lucky Shukaku wasn't doing anything that would cause it to react at the moment. Executing a series of seals, he pressed his palm to the middle of Daichi's shaking back and released a small amount of chakra, causing the red lines to flash silver for a moment before starting to retreat, the seal merging back into inactivity.

_(The nerve of his… and mine)_

'Dai.'

'What are you doing here…?' Daichi asked breathlessly, blinking his eyes as the cold air hit his skin, making the uncried tears still on his face and roll down slower 'I told you to get out…' He breathed quicker, maybe in excitement, maybe in panic as the pajama was tore on his back – it was his favorite, and yet, he didn't even comment on that as it seemed to not be important at all. He stared at the pillow before his nose with wide eyes, feeling the pain and his throat tightened again, making him spill more tears. Oh, godammit, Minato!...

'Don't touch me!...' he shouted, humiliated 'Don't call me that!... You don't have any rights to do that!... Get out!...' His back felt better, but it also was little of importance now. He covered his ears again, laying on the bed. He was acting like ten years old kid but Minato was simply not leaving him a choice. It felt so wrong to be treated by someone whom he just kicked out… And his hands were so freaking warm against him. Gods, what has he done to deserve that!...

'Dai.' the younger man repeated, as if he had never heard him. His hand stayed in the middle of the redhead's back, feeling the faint shiver on the skin and the movement when the redhead drew breath, and he kept it there, feeding small amounts of chakra to the seal through the spine, soothing the abused chakra lines. It really was amazing, what he could reduce such a strong man to with words alone. It was an awful thing, but he couldn't help feeling happy because of it.

Then he opened his mouth again, and stopped, hesitating. For a moment he felt a flicker of regret; he beat through him like through a punching bag today, and he could have done it different way. They could sit down and talk like adults, not playing, not tossing accusations and not reducing each other to bundle of tears. But then, he knew that any other way would give the man an excuse – an excuse to pretend it never happened and to try play it out in nice approvable way – political way. And he couldn't have that. In the end, he loved Daichi. He loved him sweetily, he loved him randomly, he loved him cruelly; like Kushina (only a bit different), like Naruto (only more romantically), like his other sempais (but with more lust and more sadism). He loved him and cared for him, that's why they went it through the childish teenagerish way, so the man would never forget it – and believe him once he would tell him what he wanted to say.

'Dai…' he said for the third time and leaned down, breaking through the private bubble, letting go of himself and brushing his hand against the unshaved cheek, petting it adoringly, ignoring the salty tears on it. 'Dai, you idiot. Stop crying.'

He hadn't stopped when the redhead looked at him with the corner of his eye, scared and unsure, a bit like an abused animal, like a beaten wife, like a kicked child. He smiled at him. So much for a tyrant, dictator and bad father. But the redhead didn't respond. The younger man sighed, his other hand reaching up and sliding against the redhead's neck. The finger's slid down, tips brushing against the Kazekage's jaw.

'Daichi… be mine.'

The other man slowly moved to the side and looked at the blond through glass of their tiredness and handful of tears. It was almost like a good dream after so many nightmares and the caress was so unreal… but so, so... He looked at the covers and slowly let go of it, following the way they slid, catching them slightly. They were still there. He closed his eyes. He couldn't believe it could be happening.

'…no.' he whispered as his grip grew more desperate on it. No, he had to, didn't want to let go. Because even if… that was absurd, but even if… it was too late, so many things not to turn down, so many obstacles to go through… It was impossible. No.

'No.' he repeated, curling his hand around them and kissing them with light caress, then letting them go. 'Go away.'

'When are you going to learn to ask for the things you want…?' Minato asked softly, turning his hand around and brushing the back of it against a damp cheek. How could any human being be that willful and headstrong? What a loaded question… Hadn't he asked the answer to it to marry him? And that didn't change the fact this time nothing stood in the way and Daichi was still running, even when everything he did showed it wasn't the complete opposite to what he wanted. 'I'm tired of hurting you. I want to love you, stupid; let me.'

Daichi slowly rose up to the sitting position, not even looking at the blond, then turned toward him, discarding of that broken pajama top since it just dangled in front of him fettering his movements and let his gaze linger around the hands and lap of the blond that was acting so unlike himself… He looked at him, wiping his cheek and sniffing a little, then he slowly crawled closer to him and carefully, so very carefully, like if he was afraid that once he would touch the blond he would vanish, he embraced Minato around the ribs and lied his head against the other's chest.

'I'm sorry' he said quietly, stilling in position and not tightening the grip like if Minato was made of very fragile soap bubble 'But let me… just for a moment… lay like that…'

It felt good.

Minato sighed again as he felt the unnaturally warm body press against him in such a careful, needy way. This wasn't fair, because he had never meant to hurt the other so much that the mere idea of acceptance was as bad as open rejection. And what did he expect? He had caused this. If nothing else he deserved to go through all that Daichi had without complains before. He had driven his only friend into this state of mistrust and paranoia, and the only thing he could do now was wait. And he had never been a very patient person.

'Stupid.' And he hated feeling so angry at himself, as it was hard to torture your own self, and he hated being guilty because he never quite knew what to do to make the feeling go away. 'I'm not letting you get away from this time.' he said, pressing his face against the short, saffron-colored hair and breathing sweat and fever and pulling the hard, muscled body closer by the waist. 'Say yes already, or I'll make you.'

'I just want to stay like that…' could be heard in a faint mutter as Daichi closed his eyes and let himself breathe, listening to breaths of the blond. It felt so good… so good… too good… He slowly rose one of his hands to catch on one of the famous scroll pockets of Konoha's vests and carefully leaned on the other man with more weight of his body. '…forever.' He felt as his throat tightened at the feeling of reactions of Minato and even despite and against his all will he grimaced, feeling how tears just came to his eyes and didn't want to stop. When was the last time he cried so much? Such a waste of water in his sick state... Drip, drip, drip.

He slowly removed the hand as his body trembled and pressed his head against the blond, crying quietly. That was too much… And it was so hard, so hard to say it now, just now…

'Please, don't do this to me…' he rasped through the tightened throat as it burned and made his words rustled and tiny 'Now that I'm so hooked, don't leave me… please…'

The grasp of other hand went more desperate, more violent as the fear of Minato just getting up and going out as everything was just revealed, spread naked and bare in front of him jumped with every hitching breath he took. He couldn't let go even if he wanted. But he didn't want to!... Not anymore...

'Please, I love you…' he muttered with barely hearable whisper, trying to wipe away the valuable tears from his cheeks but new just kept flowing 'So much… please… please…' And Minato was known of his cruelty, his lack of responses, and he hated that he did that but he loved that he could do that as he loved all of him, long ago and even as he aged he still longed for all of this… that was so sick, to love so much for so long, he knew that, he told himself that every day and yet… and yet… Minato… Minato… he loved him… he loved him… 'Please, love me too…'

Now that he actually was close enough to feel the unnatural warmth of the body pressing against him, the blond started feeling the usual uncomfortable confusion he associated with guilt. What had possessed him to do this? Daichi obviously still wasn't doing well, if the temperature and his emotional state were anything to guide himself with, never mind the fact he himself was aware of these things. Maybe that's that the reason he always had such conflictive feelings towards both Daichi and Kushina… the both of them usually made him do things he didn't want to do for reasons he didn't even understand. He had just been so mad about the fact that the redhead hadn't told him how he felt when he had that chance; even after all he had hinted and all but plainly said…

And God, even if it had caused the other so much pain, he couldn't help but loving to actually hear those things once and for all! Hadn't this what he had been aiming for so many years?

'I am.' he murmured, leaning down to press his lips lightly against the older man's neck. Even sick and away from his home Daichi managed to smell like desert. He had to pull away or risk biting him. 'I do. So stop crying.'

Daichi nodded, trying to hold back the tears, but failing at that quite visible. It felt so good to finally, finally hold onto blond like that and to hear the words he never thought he would be able to listen to, not from him, not ever, that it just hurt to not to cry. He felt happy for all his pain he had to go through to live to that day. He felt pained for all hurt that flowed through his chest for the said moment that he had to contain. He didn't feel that good at all even if it felt so good… so good… He curled up more to the blond, resisting the sobbing, wiping away his face quickly like if it could help, slowly, very, very slowly calming his lungs. He still couldn't believe it was happening.

It was probably a sick dream in which he was turned to after losing consciousness from fever. But it felt so good finally… He shivered as there was a kiss laid on his neck, a long forgotten feeling he was used to not remember already and he closed his eyes. Maybe it was a dream… but it felt so real… He caught and embraced the head of the blond in a way it was near him, hugging himself to the blond hair and stilling like that. Dear gods, he's got him. Ungodly feeling.

'I'm glad.' he whispered. No, not the right word… maybe more trivial, more common one… 'I'm happy…' Yes, more like it. He didn't' dare to tell him about how much, much he loved him or how much his heart just tried to tear away from his chest to be just near his, because that would be too much – for him, for his opinion, for them both. And he wouldn't be able to handle it if the blond got scared and decided to run away from him just now. He just wouldn't.

'Minato.' he whispered affectionately and let it speak for himself. Minato hugged the older man back, careful to do it around the waist and nowhere near the raw skin of his back, even if that had (by comparison) gone back nearly to its normal state. The burns, however, would need treatment.

'Daichi.' he answered, nuzzling his forehead against the other and wiping his cheek lightly. At least it seemed the Kazekage was getting back to himself. And just in time, too… he gave the redhead a playful grin. 'Listen, I would love to stay like this and maybe feel you up a bit, but your grandmother is coming, so, why don't we save this for next time? In case you don't feel like kicking me out, that is~ ' Pressing a small kiss against the other's lips, Minato was up and picking the biggest shards from the broken glass across the room before the door all but burst open.

Daichi looked after him for a moment like if he didn't understand a word of what was happening, then made a face like if he had been kicked. No, not that he didn't understand the joke, but he just didn't want to let go so quick, so soon… And the kiss against his lips felt too short, almost like if someone just patted him there with a candy instead of letting him taste it. He was not even thinking about sex, not yet, not now…

…okay, maybe now he was. And that really was unfair If he had another pillow he'd probably toss it at his head. Just for such jokes that worked on his libido. But then the doors opened and he couldn't just open his mouth. Chiyo stood at the door, watching the room with surprise. What has just happened here? Sure, she heard some shouting, then the ANBU came to her to inform her that Daichi needed a treatment – but she didn't expect such a mess. And with Hokage inside nonetheless.

'I'm sorry, but I thought you left the mansion?...' she said, looking at the blond. Daichi stared at her like if she was from another planet. 'I heard that Kazekage-sama needs treatment?...'

The saffron haired man winced and suddenly turned his back to her, covering himself. She felt uneasiness at the sight of burnt skin. Not that she hadn't seen many burns in her life – bah, she saw even bodies dried and burned alive, but it still looked strange to see such things on her grandson. She slowly came to him, examining the wounds, noticing that he seemed to be pretty exhausted and also – having a higher fever. But still…

'What's happened here?' she asked, applying a basic healing jutsu just to see it didn't do much and reapplying stronger one with better, but still miserable results. It seemed to be a wound skin deep, so it meant it probably burned till it reached something on what it could stop. She tried to not imagine it could be the bone of his spine 'It looks like if a hurricane just showed up and decided to destroy selected things.'

Minato waved at the old woman as if he had all rights in the world to be in the room.

'I did, but then I was afraid that Kazekage-sama would find out about it by other means and get the wrong impression- I came to inform that my baby invited Gaara-sama to have ramen when he is done being grounded, and Gaara-sama gave my Jounin an eyeball for a reply.' He made a gesture with his hand as if illustrate his point 'How come Suna gets all the cool stuff nowadays? I wish we'd had such a jutsu when we were younger…'

He shrugged, depositing the biggest shards on a side table and leaving the smaller ones to rest.

'Then one thing took to another I made a simple suggestion about my son marrying Temari-sama to strengthen bongs and political arrangements… and I can't help but get the feeling Kazekage-sama wasn't exactly partial to the idea as he tried to kill me… Forgetting the seal would activate if he tried to use chakra.' he tsked, picking up one of the pillows and fluffing it as he tasked lightly. 'Really, Chiyo-sama, one has to wonder how does Suna survive with a Kazekage that takes politics this personally. Shameful, really, are you sure he isn't adopted?'

'Not really, I delivered him to this world, though you never know about the father…' said the old woman with a tone of amusement in her voice as she looked down at her grandson. He turned himself a bit and seemed to be glaring daggers at the blond with grim face. Invitation to ramen? Yeah, right, it was the first time he was hearing about it and he was not really happy about listening to it without being given opportunity to say anything about the topic. It almost felt like old days when he just became a kage and every other kage was just ignoring his words at the meetings. But he had no other choice if he didn't want to blow the cover by himself.

'Says who.' he muttered ghastly as the jutsu on his back was jabbing deeper and deeper, probably not being able to reach the right spread of the wound yet 'You were the first one to suggest it without even giving me opportunity to get away from the issue. I'd say it wasn't even a suggestion but an ultimate resolution.'

No, he hadn't thought about that earlier, nor did he plan to. It seemed to be a quite nice idea, but now it was also dismissed quickly by Minato. Ah well, he was always freaking too much over the ages of brides in his country, so he wouldn't have the groom on time even if he wanted to. And the last thing he wanted to was bringing any more shame to his own kids.

'You were so oppressive it was hard to resist throwing things at you.' he said, looking at the ceiling. If anyone knew what he was really talking about they'd probably die from shock or from laughter. The great Kazekage from Suna throwing pillows at the Hokage for poking him in the eye of the matter from before fifteen years ago. Ridiculous.

'Maybe I just really wanted to be related to you, has it ever occurred that to you?' the Hokage said with a high, dramatic voice as he hugged the pillow to his chest. 'Either way… I'm thinking it better now, women in Suna are scary enough and between you both, I think I'd rather spare my baby and future grandsons the risk of mixing genetic makeup with you.' The blond made a show out of shuddering, picking up the other pillow and walking to bed, handed them to the Kazekage. 'How is it…?' he asked concernedly 'I stopped it as fast as I could, but it singed through cloth…'

'One day your son will regret the decision you didn't make and will fall head over heels for my kid, you will see.' said the Kazekage with grumpy voice as he took the pillow from him and laid his head on it, still not tearing his eyes away from the blond. Chiyo slowly raised he eyebrow. The gaze he was sending the blond was far too needy for her own likings. Not to mention that he blond brat was probably starting to fall for it too, because there was too much concern in his formal voice.

'It's worse than I thought but nothing that I couldn't heal.' she said, applying the fill up of the chakra as she finally reached the ends of the burn. Thankfully, it didn't brush the bone 'But if it will happen once he has main seal on himself then he will simply die. If he only survives till the obtaining of the main seal, I mean, ho ho ho!'

Daichi sent her an annoyed glare.

'Calm down, old woman, I'm not going to die anytime soon.' he said covering himself as much as he could while she still treated the burn 'That's not in my plans.'

'You said the same through your heart attack and you're again having a health problems. I'd say that I don't know how your body will handle all that there's going to be in that tattoo.'

'I'm doing it for my son so I can't die.' said Daichi looking at her with a frown 'That's something you would never understand.'

'Don't talk like if you know me, brat.' muttered the elder, ending the technique. The seal under her hand looked clean and unscarred 'There are things on this world you still don't know.'

'Sasori is never going back to Suna.'

'And you were never supposed to move to Konoha again, remember? All those swearing... so hopeless now.' said the gran and looked at the blond. 'I think that's it, let's go and let rest the brat, brat. He needs to sweat a little more.'

'A Suna nin wasting water unnecessarily?' the younger man gasped as he allowed the older woman to drag him away 'Sacrilegious! I better ask Baki-san to bring Kazekage sama some coffee- oh, nono, no, wait... he can't have coffee. Let's give him tea, like old people and kids drink…' He waved happily at the older man, giving him a somewhat softer look as the woman closed the door behind him- He wondered how long would it take for the redhead to find what he'd left for him in one of the pillows…

Feeling more like himself, he finally looked down at the older lady.

'Don't worry about Kazekage-sama, the seal is already gone almost halfway through his chakra system, and once it gets used to it, the other's will probably just cause fever and light burns, nothing like that…' he made a gesture towards the door. 'He really shouldn't use chakra until his system gets used to it… do you have anything to give him to keep him from using it?'

The elder thought for a moment about it. Then she simply sighed and shook her head. To take away whole chakra? That would require poisoning, and adding poison to the poison was usually a stupid idea.

'I can only make him fall into a coma for a few days.' she said, wondering if not to get the tea for herself as she was on her way to the kitchen also 'That would minimalize the risk of him using chakra at all and also speed up the process of healing, though I must admit I abstained from the idea as too deep coma might've just induce him into a clinical death once the fever would lead him too far away from us and he might not wake up as the jutsu wears off.'

She used it very rarely also, as she believed that no pain – no healing and if complications were to be shown, patient couldn't communicate the world about them, leaving everything on her hands. And she was not such a good observant to notice everything. Sometimes, comafied people just died.

'Coma? No, no way… Kazekage-sama would kill us.' A normal Daichi would be against it, but a weakened Daichi? Any health related risk aside, he would very likely do himself more damage by trying to keep them from placing him in a coma than the actual healing. He stopped to inform Baki that there was broken glass in the Kazekage's room and to close the window in a few minutes, nodding at him lightly in acknowledgement of what he had done.

'A Hyuuga could block his chakra paths, but I don't want to bring more people into this, not to mention I don't know what they would see…' And he trusted the Hyuugas, he did. He just didn't trust them that much, considering 80% of the members were backstabbing bastards. 'He doesn't look like he's been resting much. If you don't think it to be a risk, you could just knock him out the old way, I hear you are proficient at it~. '

The elder eyed the blond for a moment, then she started making herself a tea.

'That can be done, but I guess only once.' she said, pouring the spoon of grey, cinder leaves into the cup 'Once Kazekage-sama will know what's happened after awakening, he wouldn't let anyone get close to him no matter what. And knocking out usually doesn't take too much time.' She watched as the kettle jumped with a hiss on the gas burner and counted the minutes. 'Kazekage-sama like feeling safe and any attack at his person might end with only kunai to the neck to every person that can get closer…' she muttered through her toothless mouth 'But that sounds like fun, doesn't it?'

The blond sighed, leaning on the wall and rubbing at his neck. If he could drug Daichi, he would have done so already, but there was no saying how the demon's blood would react to any drug before the Kazekage's body had a chance to incorporate it.

'Chiyo-sama… are all redheads this complicated, or just the ones I happen to meet?'

'I'd just say you have a really bad luck, brat.' was the answer followed by hiss of a burning water against the cold cup 'I had a son, a redhead too, and he was the epitome of plain and calmness… and that's probably what killed him.' The water stopped, being taken away and the aroma of old tea filled the room. Soon, the second cup followed. 'But you have experience already so deal with him. I'm too old for his crazy ideas. Just don't get too close, he might treat you like a personal prey for his privacy and believe me, nobody would want to see that.'

'Aw, Chiyo-sama, Daichi-kun enjoys torturing me too much to do anything too damaging.' he waved his hand as if resting importance to the matter. 'It's late, though, and I should be going home. I won't be here for a couple days to let things get calmer, but the council might show up to sniff around… I told them he got the flu.'

He gave the old woman a hug. Mostly just to make a show of how much he had to bend to reach her.

'Oh, by the way, old lady. I got in really easily, your ANBU should invest in better security.'

With a small bow to her, the blond disappeared in a puff of smoke. Chiyo stood there for a moment in silence, then she slowly shook her head. What an awful brat. If the council is going to sniff around she will have to keep Daichi unconscious because the kid couldn't act like if he was sick even if he was suffering through fever.

'You heard him, Baki.' she said, trying the tea. Yes, just the way she liked it 'Invest in better security, Hokage-sama broke in without any problems.'

'Sure, sure.' said Baki and took out the little dot from illusionary eye.

'Captain Baki!' said rashly in the communicator 'The vision in tracing eyes has became available in 100% again! Kazekage-sama's room is just as well seen as before, but we don't know what caused that yet…'

'The investigate the matter.' he said, hiding it in his pocket. Yes, he really, really needed to invest into more observant people. Or maybe not. With a light snicker he took the second cup of tea and took it to Kazekage's room.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three: Blueeyed matador

'I'm home…'

'Welcome…!' it was about two seconds before he was nearly tackled to the floor by an enthusiastic little blond. 'Daddy, guess what? Kashi said that Gaara will go eat with me at Ichiraku's!'

'Really, baby? That's great.' he said crouching down to pat the blond softly.

'…did something happen…?' Minato chuckled at the kid's uncanny ability to notice when he felt any different than usual.

'I think I just did something very, very, very stupid…'

'Really…?'

He stared down at the little version of himself with brighter eyes and three almost symmetrical marks on each cheek, one hand reaching to brush one lightly. Hadn't that too been a mistake…?

'…maybe not. I might just be going a bit paranoid.' he sighed. '…I could use a hug, though.'

With a small squeal, his son threw himself at his neck, this time actually knocking him on the floor.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The next four days were to Daichi some kind of a loony dream. He woke up with a strangely good mood just to discover that he was still burning up, that there was not drank tea on his table and the window closed behind which big fat snowballs tried to imitate snowflakes and fell people on their heads. He got out of bed just to look through it and discover that everything was much whiter than before and also much more innocent by that – a view worth seeing. But at the same time he felt the waste of amounts of water that just lied on the ground and could be used up so well for their dying parts of the plantation on East side and the baobabs on the shore of eastern sea were also drying away and some water could be useful and…

He sighed and got away from the window. Now was not time to think about those things. Even if in every minute more of baobabs just withered away he was not there to help them live. He just had to heal up enough to be able to handle this, handle Gaara and handle Minato…

…and speaking of which, such a nice dream he had… almost like if it was real, he could swear that it was one of the most beautiful ones from his life. Started like a nightmare and ended like a fairy tale. And it felt so good he almost didn't feel sad it was not true… almost.

He lied down on the bed, ready to fall asleep again and maybe gain some more of such wonderful experience when something jabbed him on the neck. Great, now what. He felt the uneasiness in his neck for whole night so he thought it might be just a cramp, but now as he looked like this and searched through… something was in the pillow.

What the heck could be suddenly in the pillow that he hasn't noticed before? He rummaged through it to get out the piece of wood (how the heck piece of wood has gotten there?) but he found none. Instead – he found a beautifully crafted cylinder of jewelry that nobody could just leave like that in the old, used cushion. He looked at it, knowing that there was no mistake and he would never mistake it with anything else as he always remembered every detail of his clothes, but…

He looked around, seeing if anyone was not making fun of him and seeing no signs of hidden presence, he covered himself with a cover to look at it closely. Literally closely, as in the darkness he could barely see anything. But what was piece of Minato's jewelry doing here?... He uncovered himself, flushed, not being able to think, to gain possibility to understand… could it be… could it really be?...

'Baki!' he shouted, getting up from bed. Not a very wise move as he was feeling a little lightheaded, but he just had to get to the jounin 'Baki, oh for god's sake!'

'Here I am, Kazekage-sama.' The jounin puffed inside the room with a cloud of smoke within a bowed position, looking at him indifferently. He looked back at him, breathing quickly, then he showed him the piece of jewelry.

'This…' he started, but as he saw no recognition on the man's face he hid it away 'Was there Hokage-sama in my room last night?'

'Yes, Kazekage-sama.' answered Baki truthfully. Daichi felt like more and more blood started rushing through his head, probably making him look very strange but he didn't care.

'Can you… show me?...' he asked, not being able to formulate the words in one breath. Baki lowered his head.

'I'm sorry, Kazekage-sama, but our tracing techniques got bitten by a strange block for that night so nobody really knows what has happened…' he muttered, then he lightly rose his head, looking Daichi straight in the eye '…unless they'd obtain the only unbroken record I have. ' Daichi looked at the produced piece that puffed on the man's hand but didn't come closer or touched it. Instead, he just looked at Baki.

'And… what's on it?' he asked with much more calm but insecure tone. Somehow… somehow he remembered more and more…

'I have no idea, Kazekage-sama.' said Baki, bowing down but not hiding the tape 'Private matters of my leader are not my concern. But I must admit I have to congratulate you bravery, Kazekage-sama. To try to attack the Hokage while being under the sealing technique of such sort… this must have been really painful.' Daichi still stared at the man as he guardedly took the tape and hid it under his arm carefully. There was no doubt about it. The man saw it. Saw all of it and was not looking like surprised or outraged at all. Just a simple almost snicker of good uncle on his lips.

'Brave, you say…' he said, slowly moving away from the spot and looking through the window. The snow was still falling down in big blotches 'And not stupid, Baki?...'

'As I said, congratulations from me on your bravery, Kazekage-sama. I wished the best for you to not fall down under Hokage-sama's attack but for all I could see I must say it must've been a very tender loss.' Daichi smiled at the glass in the window. Tender, oh yes. Tender indeed.

'You know…' he said, tossing the tape in his hands for a moment along with beautifully crafted jewelry '…I think I pay you a little too little. How about a raise?'

'Oh please, Kazekage-sama, I wouldn't dare to ask…'

'Twice your regular salary?' Baki sat in silence.

'Okay, my loss, thrice. But don't tell anyone.' The saffron haired man turned to the jounin with tired, but happy smile. Baki answered with his usual, good natured one. Now he could say he was paid well enough for this. And even some more.

'Of course, Kazekage-sama.' he said with a bow 'Best luck in the future.'

And with those words, he vanished. Daichi looked at the window again and breathed with a happy sigh. Boy, he had gone crazy. He just raised Baki his salary for more than any man had before on his place. But hell, he felt like if he could sing. So why not give Baki a raise.

'…I lay, I lay, I lay my eyes on the Devil…' he hummed, laughing to himself in the mirror and turning himself from the glass '…'Blue-eyed matador', I cried, I fell for your wicked disguise.'

And boy, how hard he fell.

Without any regret he went back to the bed to watch the tape while toying with the piece of jewelry. And then watch the tape again and play some more. And again. And again. And again, again and again until Chiyo came and he had to hid it like if he was a thirteen years old looking at the porn. And that was it for his happiness because she knocked him unconscious and left him lay until he woke up just in the middle of investigation of Konoha's Council about which he had no idea they would come and…

...after they left, he only knew that if anything, he never played sick better in his life. Especially as old gramps decided to get closer to him and examine his head and five centimeters further under it and a pillow there was this damned tape which's discovery could bring the nice piece of war into the history books. So maybe his sweating was not very fake. But he managed to go through that. And just when he thought nobody would disturb him he had to hide his tape again because the grey haired teen thought it would be more grown-upish to show up in the puff of smoke instead to knock on the door. He dismissed him almost with a kick from anger, which seemed to be caught by the nervously laughing boy as he scurried away to give Gaara that darned letter of his. Kids.

And he would probably bite his head off later if it wasn't for that the kid this time knocked to the doors and announced that Minato would be coming again once he would feel better. Which would be probably soon as his system suddenly got a strange kick and healed better than kid's one which made even Chiyo surprised. But he didn't think much about it. He just lied, felt happy and thought about Minato. His precious, precious blond. He couldn't wait to see him again (unless Chiyo managed to knock him out for no reason; she was probably suspecting something and was jealous).

The piece of jewelry was carefully held by his hand or hidden behind a pillow so he could touch it every time he wanted- not that it lied much there, he just couldn't make himself to let go of it. A proof. Just once he would feel better… once he would… He kissed the jewel with care and went to sleep again. His fever was today only above thirty eight degrees. Lucky.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Gaara didn't pout at Kakashi, nor he did complain about not being able to talk to Naruto through sand, though Kakashi felt a little guilty when he saw how the kid asked for more and more paper that got scribbled over again on two sides with a tight, careful writings. The kid really had much to tell to each other… He tried not to peek, but once he saw that one page was all about the fact the snow fell down today in big parts and that was somehow fine and somehow strange and somehow scary (there! He made it in one sentence!) he just didn't want to even look at it anymore. He didn't remember ever being so articulate as a little kid. But then, he didn't remember ever being a kid, so…

He shooed away the sand that was still urgent in unmasking his face and now even getting to his pockets and took seventeen and a half of page that contained something scary even for him, but Gaara claimed it was a drawing of 'nice things' so he brought it back to the blond anyway. Hopefully, this acquaintance won't do any harm to Naruto… This time when he got home Naruto was sprawled on the floor with a bunch of papers around, kicking his legs back and forth while the toad sage seemed to be busy writing something at the table. Something in a suspiciously bright green color.

'Ero-sennin, what does being cute have to do with the noise snow makes…?'

'What's the sentence…' the older man asked, not even stopping what he was doing.

'The snow made an acute sound as it piled-'

'Acute' means sudden and short lived.'

'Ah.' more reading. 'And what does dissatisfied mean…? Like satisfied, but the other way around?'

'If by that you mean 'opposite', yes, that's exactly what it is…' If the tone was any clue, this had been going on for quite sometime.

'Your son is a little animal.' his sensei informed him. 'I'd suggest for you to get him a tutor.'

'He's only five!' Minato protested, not liking the idea of starting to burden Naruto's childhood so suddenly with chores and duties. It wasn't like if he would have much of it either way. 'And I didn't even know how to read until I got to the academy…'

'There are no wars going on currently and he is the son of a Kage. Get the kid a tutor.'

'Yes, okay…' he muttered, rubbing at his eyes. Maybe his sensei was right… he would have to ask Hizashi-san if he could recommend him someone to start tutoring Naruto on- the thought got suddenly cut off when he tripped on something that made a loud sound of protest as he stepped on it.

'…Kakashi-kun?' he quickly got down to help the teen up, a teen who smelled… awfully sweet…? He glared at the older man. 'You gave my jounin that alcohol?'

The sennin grinned at him.

'Well, it's rude to drink on your own without offering a glass to people around you, isn't it?'

'He let me have a sip, but it tasted funny.' his son chirped from behind. 'It gave me a brainfreeze…'

'Your son burns alcohol at a considerable speed.' The older man added. Minato twitched, holding the silver-haired teen to his chest as if he were a puppy.

'You gave alcohol to both babies?'

'He… hello sensei.' aaid the said teen, not even protesting by such way of holding and smiling at him with roughened up cheeks 'D-dun worry, I'm almost an adult… in three years.' With that he showed up the thumb up which would be looking quite good if it wasn't so shaky and disoriented. Beside the fact that whole Kakashi was acting like if he was made of jello and more leaned on Minato than stood on his own 'I only drank… t-th-thr-four glasses…'

Minato glared murder at his teacher which made the white haired man become suddenly fascinating in whatever he was writing.

'Don't you ever give alcohol to any of my babies again- ao you understand...?'

'Yes, yes…' with that he dragged the jounin towards the bathroom. That thing was pure alcohol disguised as creamy coldness, so of course he would be drunk as hell… Daichi hadn't even resisted three full glasses, and he was an adult (not that Daichi was any sort of comparison point, given his low alcohol tolerance….)

'How did it go?' he asked as he fought with the protesting and unwilling teenager to get him rid of his clothes to get him into a sobering shower before he got the backslash of the drink. Kakashi shuddered in the cold water, looking at Minato like a kicked puppy with the big, big trust that just has been broken and pouted.

'That's unfair sensei…' he whined, trying to cover himself 'I only got back from Kazekage and h-h-he was there, drinkin' and laughin'…' he said through his clattering teeth , trying to shy away from the cold water. Because really, what did he do? He was a very courageous person!... 'A-a-and after what's happened I was proposed only one as h-h-he said it tasted like ice cream and it did…' he moaned, backing away from the high flux '…and I resisted the drinkin' contest even when he s-s-said he won't 'rite me 'Icha-Icha' anymoar… y-y-you should be proud, sensei…'

'Oh, I'm proud, you have no idea how proud I am…' Minato said, fighting with the squirming teenager to keep him under the stream and getting rather wet himself in the process. God, what a day. He finally managed to get rid of the mask (certainly a Kage feat, considering how hard Kakashi fought to keep it in place) and turned the water from cold to warm. It was winter, after all, and the last he wanted was for the younger man to catch a cold. 'What did Kazekage-sama and Chiyo-sama tell you?'

'Kazekage-saa... ah.' said Kakashi as he made a leap out of the shower and jumped out of it only to make Minato accidentally step in under the highest stream of water 'Kazekage-sama was scary… and Chiyo-sama said… said…' What did she say?... '…Gaara was happy with the letter anyway, hahaha…'

Minato said nothing, just remained in that precarious position nearly all the way into the shower as warmish water poured on his clothed self. It was at this point that Minato decided he was tired of being the good parental figure. Jiraiya nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the screams coming from the bathroom, which seemed to indicate that the jounin was being skinned alive and eaten or worse. He shot the youngest kid a scared look, but Naruto seemed to be awfully concentrated on deciphering what his share of drawings were supposed to be and so he decided to go to the bathroom and make sure he wouldn't be left alone as permanent sitter to the little blonde menace.

What he found in the shower was a Hokage squeezing his white jacket dry while the contents of the shower seemed to have been turned into some makeshift spider web, with the naked jounin trapped with ropes in the center of it so the once again frigid cold water fell directly on top of his head and down his body, ropes and ninja wire keeping him tied so tightly eh barely could do anything but wiggle helplessly and whine.

'You are cruel, you know…' the sage told him, eying the dripping blond with thinly veiled fright. His student just turned to him with a sunny smile.

'So I've been told.'

Kakashi whimpered, looking at his favorite author with dismay.

'I'm never drinking with you again…' he muttered and pouted, looking at the floor and letting the water fall down off him in such disgraceful way 'Even Kazekage-sama wasn't so scary as sensei is… and why he doesn't get any punishment, it was his temptative ways I fell for not otherwise!'

'That's not for drinking, Kakashi-kun.' the Hokage said, continuing with squeezing the excess of water from his jounin vest. 'That's to try to get you sober, which you seem to be against.' Once done he judged the younger boy to have had enough, he threw a kunai to a single rope that immediately made the whole construction cave in and release the teen, after which he changed the water back to warm and finally closed the shower door.

'Now, stay there until you warm up again and change into something dry. Sensei will make some miso soup for you and I'll get some aspirin-'

'What? Why do I have to-?'

Minato turned to the taller man with a sweet, sparkly smile, cutting him mid sentence, sweat beading on his forehead.

'I'll… I'll make it pork. You guys like tonjiru, right? Of course you do, tonjiru it is…' he took the Hokage's nod as a sign to run away to the kitchen and start working on the dish as fast as sage-ly possible. Kakashi made an unhappy face at the blond, but once he heard that his favorite author will make him a soup his mood lifted visibly and he started dressing himself up. After a few minutes he was almost ready, minus the socks which one was turned on the wrong side of the material. But it didn't seem to bother him at all.

'Can we go eat some tonjiru now?' he asked with a complaisant expression if eye was anything to go by.

'Almost…' catching the teen by the scruff of his shirt, Minato spent a good minute giving the silver-head a good towel drying on his head, which caused it to puff comically as soon as the blond was done. 'Now, we are ready.'

'Great. Love you, sensei.' with those words Kakashi skipped out of the bathroom with almost too happy appearance, but much more stable than before he took the said shower. Once he sat down at the table he glued his eyes to the white haired man and kept on smiling at him and giggling to his ideas as he would never imagine himself being served a soup by his favorite author. It was worth getting sloshed after all.

'Please, hurry, I'm hungry!' he announced with a sunshiny smile that shone through his eyes and stood up only to pick up little blond from the floor and make him sit on his lap 'Now I'm twice as hungry.'

Naruto let out a surprised cry at being caught like that, but quickly relaxed and leaned back against the older boy once he realized who it was. Kashi was seldom openly affectionate, so he soaked it up whenever he had the chance.

'Yes, yes, we are hungry, Ero-sennin! Hurry up!' The older man kept muttering things under his breath as he worked on the miso, things regarding respect to elders and lack of fault for not being able to say no, but those were quickly muted as a now Dr Hokage made an act of appearance and went to the table to deposit two white pills in front of the jounin.

'Here, drink this, Kakashi-kun.' Hopefully it would help keep him from having too bad a hangover when he woke up next morning.

'Sure, sensei.' said the jounin, not expecting anything like he usually would and just swallowed the pills even if through the halfway of that he grimaced comically. '…love sure has a bitter taste.' He murmured once they were gone from his mouth, but then cuddled Naruto, messing up his hair and smiled at sensei again, forgetting about the pills in an instant. It was half way through eating the famous tonjiru, when he was directed again with the questions about Kazekage. Kazekage, Kazekage… now that he had much more clear mind, he could speak in much better fashion.

'Kazekage-sama was…' he started and looked at Minato like if he didn't know how to say something nasty. Which was about what he thought '…not very happy about my appearance in his room and he was acting rather emotional when I asked about deliverance of the letter…' To tell the truth, the man looked ready to kick his three letters once he caught up it wasn't anyone from ANBU or his personal guard or whomever he expected to see. He was even looking like if he considered throwing some tape at him so he was glad to scurry away so quickly. '…but when I announced your visit he seemed to calm down.'

'Calm down' was too much of a word. But he was too frightened to mention what really has happened. Because in reality, the saffron haired man not only froze but s m I l e d at him like a freaking sunshine and boy, was that creepy!... If he was in grave danger he'd rather not mention it to anyone to not condemn it with himself. He took another sip of tonjiru, tasting the salty and greasy soup. Delicious. Different from what sensei used to make, but a soup definitely worth recommending and tasting once in a lifetime. Jiraiya-sama seemed to add originality flavor to all he did after all. That was good.

'Chiyo-sama said that Kazekage-sama is healing up quite nicely, or as she said… ' he thought for a moment, remembering her troubled expression. She really seemed to be more surprised than himself '…this man suddenly got a kick of healthiness for no explainable reason and judging by that he will start jumping around no longer than the day after tomorrow.' he said and dug into his soup yet again, only to stop and wipe away Naruto's face who seemed to get a little messy there. It was almost like having a younger brother, if not to say – son.

'Well, that's a good thing, is it not…?' the Hokage asked, internally feeling not very hungry anymore, no matter how good the soup was. Great, now he was getting nervous… and why, really? Just because Daichi was a redhead and in his personal experience they were completely unpredictable didn't mean he should be nervous. No, not at all… He forced himself to have another spoonful.

'…but when I announced your visit he seemed to calm down.'

'No, really, did he.' The sage droned, not looking amused at all. 'How surprising…'

'Hahaha, yeah… I was pretty fr-surprised myself…' said Kakashi with a nervous laugh as he dug into another spoon of soup that blocked his mouth completely for another five seconds.

Minato sighed, rubbing at his eyes.

'Sensei…'

'What? What? I just pointed out how surprising it is, lucky you to be so special to Sabaku; king of 'Oh, I hate all humans, except when they are blue-eyed blondes, then I just want to-'

The sudden killing instinct coming from the older blond caused the sage to suddenly get up on wooden legs, muttering something about refills, as he conveniently forgot his bowl.

'…want to what?' The younger blond asked, looking confusedly after the older man. Kakashi stared after the white haired nin then slowly turned his head toward Minato, tearing his eyes away from him at the end to look at the blond with a little frightened expression. That sounded too much like a hint at something he would read in 'Icha-Icha' and not… well… uh… that was disturbing, considering that creepy happy smile he saw…

'I don't know.' he said naively, honestly hoping he didn't know 'Sensei?...'

'Don't worry, Naru.' the older blond said, back to eating calmly. 'I'm sure it's something related to Alzheimer's. Sensei isn't as young as he used to be…' From the kitchen something fell and crashed loudly, following a stream of muttered curses.

'Daddy?'

'Yes, Naruto?'

'What's Alzheimer's…?'

Yeah… he would talk with Hizashi-san on Monday. Coincidentally, the day he would have to meet Daichi.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Monday was a beautiful day. It snowed, snowed harder or even harder but nothing could destroy the happiness that shone from Daichi on five meters with dots (about which he was totally unaware or he'd probably burn from shame or exterminate the light with heavy axe). That obviously didn't find much fans when it comes to his acting.

'Don't you think Kazekage-sama is acting a little weird?' was whispered in ANBU's changing room in the deepest secrecy as one mask was laid off and vests were undone.

'You noticed it too?' asked another voice, male, dry, almost too old for the owner of it 'He changed much in the last days… what I mean is that he g r e e t e d me as he passed the hallways and he usually doesn't do that..'

'Does he greet anyone from our group at all?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'Could it be the seal working on his mind?'

'If that so, then I wish that would stay like that forever…'

'This merry-go-round state? Are you kidding me?' piped in one of a few female voices 'Why would you want such a woolly-headed Kazekage to rule you? I bet in the war he wouldn't be able to concentrate on winning because of that.'

'But maybe because of that there won't be any wars. Do you know what he did? I accidentally tripped his cup with tea and normally he would kill me if not do something worse and you know what he did?'

Silence, pregnant by waiting.

'That's right.' said the unamused, scared voice 'He said 'nothing's happened, bring me another one'. Maybe that's creepy but I like having my fingers where they belong.'

'You mean your panties?'

'Hey, that was not funny-'

'Hahaha!...'

Baki sighed out. Of course people were suspecting something, Daichi simply was too obvious and he stopped even caring about his usual attitude. For now it could be blamed on fever and seal, but what about later? He really had to talk to him about it, there were many enemies who were able to use this connection in a very bad way...

And speaking of enemies. The great elder Chiyo-sama wanted to speak with him this morning. At first he didn't suspect what was it all about as he usually avoided handling contacts with her as one family member was far enough for him (especially when he was not paid enough) but in this closed up space he just had no other choice. He came closer to her. The elder was making herself a cup of tea with big slice of lemon. And considering her face – It must've been very bitter piece of fruit she got herself there.

'Come, Baki, I need to talk with you.' she said, not even looking at him. He came closer and stood politely until she showed him the chair so he could sit down 'It's about Kazekage-sama, or as I would rather say – my excuse of a grandson, Daichi.'

Baki's senses immediately sharpened. What did this woman wanted from him that she couldn't speak to him directly but had to call the closest guard to herself? It's not like if she was afraid to approach him in the most embarrassing levels he wouldn't be able to tell out loud to his wife.

'It's about him and the Hokage.' she said, making the piece of lemon fall down from her hand into the tea. Baki felt the alarm rising in his head. But he kept his calm posture, not even batting an eye.

'And what about them?' he asked, observing the lemon in the tea 'We all know that friendship of Kazekage-sama and Hokage-sama is a bit special, that's nothing new.'

'I never said it wasn't.' said the woman, tossing him an uninterested glance. Baki felt like cursing. First words and such a slip. 'What I want to say… is that really all to be said on the ground of their relationship?'

He eyed her for a moment, then slowly leaned down, entwining his hands. If he wanted to play, he had to make it believable.

'What do you mean, Chiyo-baa-sama?'

'What I mean…' she said, slowly stripping the rest of lemon from the skin, even if she didn't have to do that for her slice was floating on the brownish surface of the tea 'That maybe Daichi fell head over heels for the young Hokage. In romantic way.'

For a moment there were no words spoken and any insect could be heard if there were any insects floating in Konoha in that time of the year. Then, Baki slowly got back to his straightened position.

'That's a very serious accusation.' he said casually. She looked at him again, uninterested.

'Oh really? Don't tell me you haven't noticed by yourself.' she said, still tearing the skin from the fruit 'Happy mood, the constant glancing after the Hokage… I know that's not obvious to everyone, but you're his closest and most trusted jounin. You surely had to notice that if you're not as bad as they say you are.'

Baki smiled at her a little ironically. He never really cared much about his opinion, as long as he knew himself he was doing his job right. And by his salary he knew that he was doing it rather well. He was not going to mar it for some suspicious old lady.

'Trusted' doesn't mean 'noisy', Chiyo-baa-sama.' he said in a soft, but steely tone 'Of course I noticed Kazekage-sama is being quite interested in watching the Hokage closely, but nothing of such matter came to my mind. But even if, that's still not my thing to ponder about unless it's making harm to the country.'

The elder finally graced him with more sharp and concentrated stare, though he couldn't say he was lucky, the annoyance blinked at him through them quite visibly.

'You're fifty years too early on this world to lie to me.' she said in an edgy tone. He didn't answer to that. She started slowly mixing the lemon with tea with a tiny silver spoon – without an ounce of sugar 'I know something has happened that night in his room. Daichi got too much joy from that if his heath wasn't saying much for everything. Can you tell me what's happened there, Baki?'

'I'm afraid not, Chiyo-baa-sama.'

Another moment of silence, followed by staring at each other, trying to read hidden signs from the faces, thinking up new strategies.

'I demand you to show me what's happened there.' she spoke.

'I'm afraid it's not possible, Chiyo-baa-sama.'

'That's an order from the Elder.'

He looked at her for a moment, then took out a tape. An order was an order and he was no one to not listen to that. A few moments later the tape was played out.

A silence. The saffron haired man laying in bed, breathing heavily, looking unresponsive and sick. Twenty minutes of nothing, change of position. Another bunch of minutes filled with nothing. Hokage entering the room and looking at the sleeping figure. No response. A cloning technique, the clone walking out. The silence. Original coming to bed and sitting on the edge of it and reaching out for the face of the other man, petting it.

'Dai.'

The image going blurry, screechy and unreadable, including the sounds. Some shouting. Some talking. The voices of Hokage, lower, higher, amused, cold. More blur. Now the tones became only darkened mumbles only readable out of how many stops and answers were given. Something tore. Some answers. Some questions. Quicker speed, slower. Pauses. Some other sound, more talking. Silence followed by strange music, like if someone was trying to hit the wall with bricks for at least few minutes. Then resumed talking, longer pauses, barely hearable voices. Another voice coming in. More talking. Finally, silence. After a few more minutes, vision finally getting back to normal. Kazekage laying in bed, sleeping. Baki entering the room with tea, leaving it there. Sleeping…

'Is that all?' asked the elder, looking at the jounin with confused gaze 'What's happened to the record?'

'It's some kind of confusion jutsu, we still have no idea what it was.' he reported to her. She didn't look convinced but also not unconvinced either. Finally, she frowned and hunched, holding her hands near her chin, wondering, thinking. The man watched her with unreadable expression in silence. The snow fell on the ground on the other side of the windows.

'Fine, I believe you.' she said finally, looking at him with a little sour expression 'But if I find out what's on the tape and I won't like it you will be the one to be responsible for that. Do you understand?'

'Pretty clear, Chiyo-baa-sama.' he answered, clicking his boots together. If that so, there was only way to know what was on the tape – to get a copy Daichi held onto. And there was no way he'd let anyone see such scene for his dear life, Baki was sure of it. His head was safe 'Is there anything else I can do for you, Chiyo-baa-sama?'

'Yes. Please, honor the Hokage, he is going to come to the place today and don't let go an eye of him. If Daichi tries anything suspicious, be sure to stop him and report everything to me immediately.'

'Of course, Chiyo-baa-sama.' he said again, clicking his shoes one more time. The elder looked at him with unreadable face for a moment then turned around.

'I'm going for a walk. The tea is for you.' she said and moved out of the room 'Drink it or throw it out, do as you like. I don't like such a sour taste after all.'

He nodded and took it to his lips once the door closed after they grey head. Maybe she didn't like her tea sour, but he was very fond of lemons. So he was grateful. With one swift move he drank it all as the water was precious and only elders didn't care about what's happened to it nowadays and, after taking the tape, he moved out to prepare for coming of the Hokage. As bratty as they both were, kages were always kages. Even if that meant working more in high school than leadership grounds. But at least he was paid enough to live through that.

She was greeted by the sight of the Yondaime Hokage approaching about half an hour later.

'Chiyo-sama…!' the blond said, looking surprised to find the old woman on his way. 'What are you doing outside the house? Isn't it too cold for your health?'

Chiyo looked at him like if he was always there and waved him off.

'You youngsters always exaggerate… only because I have old bones doesn't mean I'm going to be scared of a little freeze when it comes to my hobby.' Another piece of grass was taken from the ground, then another when she finally stood straight. 'Only people as delicate as youngsters who lived only in Suna keep on complaining… but I remember days when Suna was not as warm as it is now. Greetings, brat-sama.'

The blond made a face- As most young males, he tended to think old people were made of glass, especially old ladies.

'You mean there was a time Suna wasn't the world appointed oven? Then again, why do I worry, I'm sure with that size, old ladies mustn't feel very cold… heat preservation and all that.'

'At least my heat preservation includes brain using unlike some other people whose beauty had to be done for some price. But that's what will change with age, ho ho ho!' was the answer as the woman started laughing merrily, hiding the grass into her traveling bag 'I didn't expect to meet you here, brat. Weren't you going to drink the tea my people will make?'

'You know, once when we were in a mission Kazekage-sama told me that the special tea in Suna was made with crushed bits of poisonous bugs, and to this day I'm not sure if he was joking or not so... I'd rather have coffee. And maybe make a show of how good it is in front of the patient. Ho ho ho~!' he offered the woman a hand to help her up. 'How did the council meeting go?'

The woman looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then took his hand and stood up.

'I think he said it well, I'm not going to inform you about it either if you can't figure it out by yourself.' she said with a smile and started walking along the road, still searching for additional grass 'You council is a bunch of pretty nice people, I mean, until Daichi woke up… then they were less nice.'

She sighed, remembering how oily the men seemed to be just to make her wake up Daichi and when Daichi decided to wake up on his own how edgy suddenly they became. Like a cacti that can hide and spew out the needles.

'…but I never suspected Daichi to be such a good actor. I swear his sweating looked almost professional. Maybe he is not feeling that well after all.'

'Yes, well… All things considered, he took the poison better than I had expected him to. Maybe It's a good thing you Suna barbarians attempt pest control by poisoning your children.' he said, not thinking too much about it. 'Either way old lady, I should go meet Kazekage-sama before it gets too late, I still need to go make a visit to Hyuuga. Make sure not to stay too late, or I will forced to drag you back to your suite.' Really, tiny old ladies shouldn't stay in the snow so late. It was bad for their health.'

'Sure Yellow Flash, run, maybe you shall make it on time for your good night story telling.' she said waving him off again as if he was a nuance 'I will go to sleep later than that.'

And with that, she walked away. She really wasn't done yet and what the youngster did at Hyuuga's was not her concern at all. But it was nice meeting him, in that sort of bratty, silly way.

'Good luck, kid.'

'I mean it, old lady! If you die from the cold, I will bury you in a dollhouse!' he called after her, before giving a somewhat apprehensive look to the mansion. Yeah. Here he was. After nearly five days of closing a door to his old life and entering another one… That he had no idea where it would take him. What Kakashi had said had been nice to hear, even if not thanks to his sensei's big mouth, he would have to deal with a very observant kid observing verily their every move.

Not that it was a bad thing, Kakashi was very proud of his student and all his accomplishments… he just were worried a little about what he would think of him if he did find out. And maybe he worried a lot more about what would happen once he did face Daichi. What he had done would obviously alter everything about the relationship he had and Minato… had never been very good at handling change. One thing was to adapt to it when there was no other option, another was to openly invite it. That was the reason he hadn't asked Kushina to marry him until Naruto had almost been ready to be born, and when they did, it was a very small wedding. He had just been afraid as to what things would change between them.

Kushina… He wondered what she would think of this. Probably something along the lines of 'If you don't do it now, I'll call you a pussy until you die'. Yes, his supportive, lovely, crazy little woman. How he missed her. Either way, she was right. It was time for him to go in and face the situation. He smiled down at the bag of sweets he had on his hand. Just as soon a she finished talking with the kids bit and giving them the gift.

And kids liked the gift. One could say they liked it a little too much – even more than the Hokage himself. It was mostly due the fact that neither Kankuro or Temari had any sort of relationship with Minato, so they treated him as every celebrity – with vigilance. And nothing more. Gaara liked the sweets too, but not much. He, on the other side, found it much more likeable to just walk with Minato around his room and showing him things he discovered in it alone, for once not even thinking that Minato might have known what was sitting in there as it was his place. But even if he knew, he'd probably do it anyway – because nothing was sweet as much as the precious time he had with him, just as he had with Naruto. He never got so much positive attention from anyone other than his family – so he cherished it. Greatly. So greatly he wanted to give the blond a piece of sand again as 'mother' seemed to be very pleasant about Naruto's father being close to her and for him it was obvious that the sand was protective and nice. It was until then where the clearing of the throat of Baki (which he did from time to time while looking at the clock) changed into an open talking about 'how late it was' and that he 'needed to talk with him' and he practically pushed the blond out of the room until the sand could catch up to them. Then he looked at him.

'Sweets for kids? You're too sweet Hokage-sama.'

'Kids likes sweets…?' he said in a somewhat nervous voice, not really meaning to sound it like that, but not being able to help it. Baki wanted to talk. That couldn't be too good for him. He shook off his shirt, making sure there wasn't a speck of sand left on it (Gaara might be one of the cutest kids he had seen to date, but that didn't make the raccoon any more likeable to him) before finally turning to the jounin, his expression more serious. 'What is it, Baki-san?'

'In Suna kids like water.' was the short answer 'But I guess it doesn't matter since we're not in the village Hidden in the Sand, does it.'

Baki tossed the blond a searching glance as he looked at him from head to toe. He didn't look very suspicious, for a Hokage at least. But such always hid many faces inside – he would have never suspected in most absurd dreams that the blond could be so cruel to make such a cold hearted person as Sabaku no Daichi cry. He wondered for a moment if to say anything at all, but after all he was more with Kazekage's side than Chiyo's – mostly because he was the one paying him. If that issue wouldn't matter then he'd have to wonder longer about that. He smiled lightly.

'I just wanted to congratulate you on your winning.' he said carefully, bowing down a little but still looking straight into the blue eyes 'But as sweet the win wouldn't be, there's always a taste of cider trailing behind as some would burn bodies and bridges just to throw you down from the high horse, Hokage-sama.' he muttered, then bowed down lower 'I'd suggest more vigilance from now on as the losing side has lost the world from the eyes for a moment.'

In Suna kids liked water? In Suna everyone liked water; the inhabitants, the guests, the merchants that passed by, the animals, the insects, the parched ground… He was about to comment on that when the jounin continued. It took him a few seconds to catch on what was the most likely thing the other could be hinting at- which he didn't like one bit. Not only did it mean that Baki knew a lot more than he let on about them, not that he hadn't already been pretty sure about that, but also that other people knew. Not the council, because they had just visited one time… But Chiyo had given him an odd look before they parted ways.

'Sunanian poetry… I never had much a taste for it.' he said, smiling lightly at the man. 'Either way, I will be making some adjustments to the seals in Kazekage-sama, and as you mentioned privacy, a bit of it would be nice.'

'Of course, Hokage-sama.' said the jounin and bowed down 'Please, enjoy the snow falling down for a few moments, I guess such view can't be missed now no matter what.'

And with those words, he vanished.

'…no, really, I hate Suna poetry.' Minato muttered under his breath, finally making his way to the redhead's room. After a pause, he took a deep breath and knocked. Inside the room the Kazekage was just having a big dilemma about doing the papers the way he should. Because of his late fever he hadn't done even the least miserable bits of what he usually did in Suna when he had his worse days so now birds with the post were simply making him drown in documents. After trying to answer them in no particular order he felt that everything he was gaining was oncoming headache so he just threw them out on the floor and started rearranging them again.

Just completing the left corner of the room took three hours of his rest (and sleep) and after almost whole day and night he had the floor covered in very ordered papers. True, he had no way to get to bed, to desk or even get out of the room if he didn't walk on the walls, but as a Kazekage he didn't have to do anything like that. He just could sit, arrange, sign, think, dream, Minato, Minato, Minato…

…ah, and there he went again and wrote 'Minato' all over the paper. Gods, council will go mad if he will ask them for fourth copy of the same document but they couldn't do a damn thing. He was sick. He could as well vomited on those and nobody had the right to ask. Sick Kazekage was a taboo.

'Come in.' he said holding the feather pen between his teeth and burning the useless paper now as he tried to get to the next one. But where did he left other copies for cacti gardening on this place? He could have sworn it was right corner, but was it right corner of the room when he was facing the north or maybe west?... 'Just avoid coming in.'

He should be able to clear all the mess before anyone from Konoha (or Minato) should come, he was even half ready with his clothes… if he only knew where he left his top between those papers. It was cold to sit there in sole fishnet shirt and pants even as the window was closed. Oh, and talking about that, his left shoe got missing two hours ago… what was he signing two hours ago?...

'Or maybe just avoid opening the door!' he decided to shout at the newcomer. Gods, what now. He was tired of sitting in bed all the times, the whole giddiness solely didn't let him.

'Well, if this is the welcome I'm going to get I better go back home…' The blond muttered as he very, very carefully turned the door and squirmed inside, not quite avoiding pushing one of the pile of papers. He leaned down to pick them 'Greetings, Kazekage-sama. How nice to see you out of bed where you should be resting.'

'How many times I told you I'm feeling fine enough to not lay in this bed you old wit-' It was only when Daichi decided to turn around the words died on his mouth. As well for the fact that his order was now a little destroyed and as for the fact that instead of 'old wit-' there was standing no one else but Minato. 'What are you doing here? You were supposed to be here at eleven.' he said, taking out the pen from his mouth and rushing to close the door that made the wind disturbing all papers in the room. 'Now I didn't even manage to clean all that stuff out and you will be stepping on Suna's matters. How rude of you.'

The comment was followed by a light laughter and click of the lock, the man stilled, looking down at the blond man who tried to take care of documents that he made laying in a mess yet again. And he felt like if his throat contained suddenly too much an air.

'Leave those, it's a miracle they were staying untouched like that for so long.' he said crouching down and circling his arms around the shoulders and hugging himself to the warm back. Maybe that was a little too much but he just needed to feel that the blond was there… he was…. And he was. Good. He stood up, taking the papers to another corner of the room, finding a cup of tea on the way and drinking from it.

'It took you some time to show up again.' he said skeptically, even if all he wanted to say was 'I missed you', but what the heck, he was not some sort of modeling clay to spew out such stupidities. 'I guess you had a very busy week for the time being.'

The Hokage just smiled lightly at the older male as he picked the papers and placed them in a corner, only to stop and stare wide eyes as Daichi suddenly clung to him for a moment. It was only about three seconds, but it was something so completely out of character- as much as the nervous mood the other seemed to be into- that Minato suddenly realized that what Baki had said probably wasn't an exaggeration, bad Suna poetry or not.

'Yes… The council was getting suspicious.' he straightened back up, staring at the older man. 'Dai…'

The other man stiffened at the shortening of his name, but he slowly swallowed the rest of the tea as he was doing at the moment. Then he relaxed and turned to the blond. The sole fact that Minato used it was making his heartbeat accelerate, but there was something in his voice that stopped him from answering the call. He only left the papers on the pile and loosely crossed his arms.

'Please, don't get too used to this name, I wasn't called that since I left third class of primary school.' he said, smiling at him lightly 'I don't react at it pretty well. Is something wrong?'

The blond made a unimpressed expression that clearly stated he didn't believe a word about what the other had said about not liking it- before it changed to a more serious one. Rather unhappy, at it.

'Yeah… I guess it is.' he said, sorting piles of papers as he made his way to the shorter man. 'Baki pretty much told me people suspect of you. And I'm pretty sure that by people, he means at least your grandmother.'

Daichi looked at him in silence. His grandmother?... Chiyo?...

'No way.' he said in a haunted voice, then he started to laugh. Gods, Sunanians were really falling behind with their emotional training. But how could she blow her cover like that? She was by far much older and knew much harsh trainings and rules when it came to keeping secrets. But that was also not funny. If Baki saw through her, then there was possibility other people did too. He slowly ceased his laughing. Oooh, schnucks.

'It's all your fault, you know.' he said, letting the cup stand on another pile of papers and closed the distance between him and Minato, still with crossed arms and with a little smile 'If it wasn't for your concern then maybe she wouldn't examine it out from me, so she wouldn't know at least that someone is especially fitting my tastes. Sadly, she disapproved of my choice, so look out, she might want to protect you from me.'

As for other people, he had no idea, nor he cared much, really. If anything, Baki should have let him know first. If he didn't, it probably not that much important as Minato thought it was.

'My concern…?' Minato stared disbelievingly at the older man. Did he have any idea how bizarrely was he acting compared to his usual cold, scathing self? 'Daichi, I've always been a nice person, so concern is usual and expected of me. You, on the other hand, are evil so when you act any other way, obviously other people will react, and when you look at me all… like… looking…'

….fishnet…

'Mmmph?' Daichi almost choked on his tongue on the sudden attack as he was completely not expecting the blond to be so violent on the matter. Yes, he felt the tension in the room but not that big… not that he minded… he minded but… He sneaked his arms around the waist and broke the kiss with a lick, laughing softly.

'If I'm the obvious one then you're subtle as pack of bricks.' he muttered and tightened the hold 'What was that supposed to be? A temptation or a polite asking?'

'It means to stop looking at me like if I'm free candy for your taking, because it doesn't help you and it certainly doesn't help me.' Minato said softly, before leaning down for another less than gentle kiss, his hand going down to the redhead's waist and pulling him flush against his body as his hand slid under the fishnet

The saffron haired man let out a whimper at such treating, because if anything, he just wanted to be close to the blond. But it seemed that his 'close' and Minato's 'close' were a two completely different ways of 'close' in the meaning. It was becoming more and more obvious. Minato wanted to have sex. Big kid. With such attitude he'd probably have five kids if it wasn't for the fact he had no possibility to do that anymore.

He let go of the kiss to look at the blue eyes. Of course, he had thought about getting that close, but… He kissed the lips with a few short but not quick pecks and let his tongue linger on the corner of the mouth of his until he caught the hand under his fishnet and led it outside.

'If you don't want to be taken as a candy, then don't look like one.' he murmured and letting it lay on his back as he hugged himself to the warm body 'Is that how you always resolve the private problems with every councilor?'

'I wish every councilor looked like you do…' the blond said with a little smile, leaning to leave a kiss on the redhead's neck, then pulling away, rubbing the back of his neck. 'Seriously, go back to being evil and bastardish. This room has surveillance after all.'

And Baki had already given them enough minutes as it was. He reached for the tea (cold) and drank what was left of it to get himself a little more calmed. It wasn't that he would have had sex with Daichi there and then… Not that he wouldn't have wanted to, just that he wouldn't. Now really was a good time. 'We have a mission to finish before deciding what to do, right?'

Daichi felt a frown forming on his head. What was the blond talking about? 'Evilish'? 'Bastardish'? He was a saint to be able to put on with everything just the way he did and not to break into a nervous breakdown. But if him being brooding for all day long would satisfy the blonde he might try… even if all he wanted to do was just to sit with him and play such a game like scrabbles or uno. Really, he wouldn't expect to having such a low esteem when it came to happiness.

He pulled out of the arms reluctantly – the blond decided to push him away just when he was starting to feel cozy and warm and just happy satisfied and now decided to drink from his cup. He didn't mind him using his things, even when he usually hated his things being touched – he didn't mind him doing anything if it only meant he was there.

'Yes. Mission. Right.' he muttered, knowing that yes, mission, right and that was supposed to be done, but even before he had thought of what was he doing his body reacted by itself, hugging closely to the blond again. He felt like if Minato was starving him even now, when he had rights to touch him. He was acting like a lovesick brat, but he just couldn't help it – his crush never had chance to fully bloom into a full grown love as he always only had the image before his very own eyes. He should be able to hold the distance and do his normal stuff, but… but…

…but Minato was a source of warmth in the room. It was a pathetic and trivial reasoning and he could think up a lot more, but he didn't want to. His heartbeat agreed even to that, beating with quick, almost irregular rhythm.

'So, what are the details of the next step?...' he asked, not even trying to pretend he was letting go of the blond. Because he really, really didn't want to. Really.

'Dai~' the Hokage all but whined, giving the older man a half-hearted push 'You are not helping.' Reaching for one of the pillows in bed, he hit the redhead on the head with it.

'Shoo, go away. We can cuddle all you want when we are done with making sure the seals work.' Though he had never expected to know Daichi was that starved for contact. If he had any idea how much like is son he acted… Daichi looked at the man with a clear disappointment in his head. To hit him with a pillow like some… some… stray cat!... Sure he had done it to him before, but... that was different. But even by then he felt like letting go was the worst thing he could do now. But that probably wouldn't end pretty if he wouldn't.

'I see you take after your sensei after all.' he muttered, giving the blond one last squeeze to finally let go of him and move to the papers that were blocking the way to the desk to move them so he could sit. After a moment of hesitance, he started moving away the paper from bed. He couldn't let Minato stand like that too and even if it would be a very nice thing to have the blonde on his lap the said blonde probably wouldn't appreciate it as much.

And too bad, the darkened atmosphere of the room has only made him feel more secure and needy. Maybe he should uncover those windows from curtains at least once…

'So, what do you want to do now' he asked once he made the way to the bed ' You want to activate those hellmakers on my back?'

Minato was more than just slightly relieved when the other man let go. He seldom got touched by other people that weren't his son so intimately. Pulling off his jacket and dropping it in a one small free space on the bed, he turned the redhead so he was giving his back to it.

'Depends... have they hurt recently?'

The saffron haired man slowly turned to the blond, looking at him through his shoulder, but not directly at the eye, more at his hands and abdomen. Had they really?... He has remembered that if anything, a few days ago they were giving him an impression of an egg baked on a frying pan without butter. Which was pretty painful. But as the time passed the cold acid biting had subsided into an ebbing that went through his back at less and less various occasion. The sizzling of his skin hadn't hit him on full impact as he was too shaken to actually notice he had almost peeled bits of skin from his bones.

After that he had been more concentrated about Minato so even if it hurt he barely noticed it. Not mentioning he was knocked out for quite some time. He rose up his hand to touch the seal on his neck and let his fingers linger on the writing under it, feeling only a few cold needless that were doing him just as much harm as an average not poisoned kunai used with force of one year old. The lack of pain was one of those reasons that drove him away from the bed. If it as not making him concentrate on how much it hurt, then he was thinking. And he could either lay and sport a tent or do something valuable. Like pillowing the papers from Suna in the right order.

'No, not really, no.' he muttered, taking off the fishnet to let the blond have a better look ' The last hard pain I felt was yesterday… now it only stings a little.'

'That's good news, you heal faster than expected.' the blond said with a smile, somehow resisting, for the umpteenth time, to bite at the other's skin. Daichi had really nice skin, always had. That soft, almost-not-quite-tan most Sunanians had, covered in scars and gauges and old marks of stitches. One of these days he would finally give in and leave a nice, glaring mark on it. Reaching with a hand, he pressed his fingertips lightly to the dark traces on skin. It was still a bit swollen, but not it was only the surface of the tattoo itself, like if it were a normal one done just the previous day. The skin around it wasn't red or giving any signs of infection.

'Chiyo-sama really is a genius at healing if she took off the burns you had.' he commented, running his hand lower to the skin like he had done the last time. Carefully, he applied a small burst of chakra, feeling it reach the desired areas correctly. It seemed that the poison had finally run its full course. 'I'm going to activate it…' a hand seal later, the seal suddenly flashed purple, then slowly reverted to the usual black.

'How does it feel?'

Daichi didn't want to do that, but his eyes fluttered close almost by themselves once there was a hand on his neck. Somehow, the fingertips, being only a brim of body, a light pressure made it more sexual than the full pressing against the blond's body. He couldn't give into that, but the room was becoming a little more suffocating even if he tried not to give into that. So he couldn't help it – he opened his mouth a little to breathe the warmed up air.

'That old witch surely knows what she is doing with such experience.' he said, pressing a little against the fingers. No, it didn't feel better or worse, but it just made him feel more. And of course his pants began to tighten and…

'I'm going to activate it…'

…there was a pull on his neck as if someone has suddenly grabbed him by and tried to check if it was possible to pull his brain out by tugging on his spine. After a moment thought it all calmed down, making him feel like if skin on his back itched a little, making to prickle worth something but not doing it at the end. He looked down at his pants. There. All you needed to do to kill the sexual tension was to activate the seal. Brilliant. At least for now… He slowly let go of a breath.

'It feels like if you punched me in the back with species tank and made me believe that there were ants in it while there actually weren't any.' he muttered, massaging the seal again. It didn't change anything, but it just made him feel relieved he could point out the place where was the cause of his problem. The primal, humanish instinct.

'It will go away.' the blond said, picking up the discarded fishnet, and adding a shirt while at it. 'Let's give it a test trial of twenty four hours. I'll come back tomorrow to see how you are doing.'

Reaching into one of the pockets in his vest, he pulled out one of his special kunai, the one he used for his Thunder God technique.

'If anything happens, just have Baki send a chakra flare, I'll be here immediately and turn it off. Either way, it shouldn't bother you too much by now.'

'Don't worry about it, I'm a grown man and I can do it myself.' said Daichi, wearing the fishnet and smoothing it out, only to wear the shirt on it – where did the blond find it anyway? He could have sworn he searched for it everywhere and hasn't found anywhere… But at least he had it. With one last smoothing of the material he looked at the blond again and inched closer, embracing him yet once again. Minato said 'no hugs' but was ever anything on this world to stop him if his own mind was not making any barriers? Of course not.

'I will be waiting anyway.' he whispered quickly, kissing the skin under chin and pulling away. He felt more than sad for letting the blond go but at least not forever… like he always thought he did. 'Farewell for now.'

Minato made a whiny noise at that, a small blush appearing on his cheek, before the redhead pulled away. After it, the blond just stayed where he was, giving the redhead a serious look.

'Daichi…?'

The other man looked back, not understanding why the blond was not walking away. But if he didn't want to, that was fine with him, even I it meant only a few seconds longer.

'What is it?' he asked, smoothing the shirt again, even if it didn't need anything like that. Really, even in this grey, almost not visible light through clouds the blond looked serene. He could just sit there and watch him, on and on… beautiful. The blond still had that complicated expression on his face, and seemed oblivious to the going on of the redhead's mind.

'Do your kids have tutors…?'

Daichi blinked and slowly turned his head away.

'Temari and Kankuro do.' he said, looking at his hands. The broken nails were healing quite nicely 'Gaara doesn't, he is too problematic. I used to teach him myself. Why do you ask?'

'Sensei thinks Naruto needs one.' the blond said, sighing resignedly and finally getting up, his fingers casually brushing against the nape of the redhead's back. 'I don't really want him to, but I guess it's time already... I'll go ask Hyuuga if they can recommend anyone, you don't get any fancier than them.'

The redhead shivered at the touch, not rising the hand to brush it away, even if he wanted to do it. Somehow, he felt like if the blond did it deliberately, just to make him feel the more tingling in his groin. And he wasn't sensitive there before – his rhino skin barely caught on such things. Bastard.

'He is your kid.' he muttered, remembering the hateful glare which he knew so well… uh. Maybe he should do something about it. Maybe visit Kushina since it was in the same place. That would probably be good, but at the same time it felt like coming with the victory sign and waving it in the front of the dead's nose. Kind of unfair.

Even if it really, really sounded like fun. He didn't even have chance to have the last argument about Minato once she snatched him away to the village with her wedding. But then he was a little too mature for that. And he regretted his maturity till today. He looked at his hands, pondering. Yes, maybe he should do it. Like… tomorrow. It's not like if he had anything else to do – the papers would still be there if like he left them. Or at least they should be – he had ANBU for something.

'As Hokage's kid he needs to know the best and be taught the best or else he will be no authority to look up to later. Just don't overdo it, so many bowing can crack a back of someone who is not genetically able to bend so many times as those Hyuugas.'

'It hurts to watch them, doesn't it?' the younger man said, smiling down at the redhead. 'Either way, you should already be able to use chakra, but don't overdo it. I mean that, please don't do anything crazy because I want to finish the designs as soon as possible to stop having the council breathing down my neck.'

Daichi smiled at this.

'Oh, Minato, you know me. I'm a quiet man, why should I jump on the nerve suddenly?' he asked, though there's been much autoirony in it. He was not calm. He was just silent. And he was not jumping on the nerves, he was tearing it. But things looked nicer once you called them softer. 'Don't worry, the last thing I want to be is the cause of troubles for you. Soon the council won't have a thing on you.' …maybe besides other council having a thing for him. But hopefully, no news of such sorts would reach Suna or come out from the room at all.

Minato gave the older man an amused glance, before smiling sweetly at him.

'If you really think that just three days of distance will save you from me, you are more innocent than I had expected. Heal fast, Kazekage-sama, my son wants to invite yours as soon as possible.'

Leaving the kunai on the table, the Hokage disappeared with a hand seal. Daichi looked at the spot where a moment ago the man was standing. Then he started chuckling.

'That's a threat or a promise, Mi-na-to-kun?...' Though, to tell the truth, he wouldn't mind both. He was always some sort of pleasure feeding masochist. Even dead people told him so. Why shouldn't he believe them?

#+#+#+#+#+#

That day ended more or less nicely for the blond Hokage. He had finally gotten to kiss Daichi (twice) though he sadly had been unable to do much more due the circumstances. Not that he would just have had sex with him there and then… (he had never really gone beyond kissing with any other guy, but as far as he understood by basic lessons of anatomy, it would be a little more complicated than doing it with a girl) but it would have been nice if Dai had let him touch him just a little bit more. He really had nice skin. And if that little noise was any sort of indication, his back was sensitive, which would have made a world of fun to touch it while they kissed some more.

Entertaining as those thoughts could be, Minato felt it wouldn't be healthy to dwell on them for too long, and so he had forcefully kicked them off his mind as he walked through the cold to the Hyuuga, hoping to see the Chiyo so he could scold her again for being out while the sun was coming down and temperature descended, but not being able to find her. Which probably meant she was trespassing, in which case he just didn't want to know where.

He had gotten to the manor, reassured Hizashi that he just wanted to talk about something other than the Kazekage and asked him if he could recommend a tutor. It was at this point that Hiashi himself had appeared to greet him, and once informed of the topic of discussion, the man had obviously been ecstatic about such public recognition on the superiority of Hyuuga over other families he had decided to stay and talk his ear off regarding who they would recommend and why. And Minato stayed and heard them out simply because he didn't have the heart to tell the twins he would have chosen

Nara Shikaku at the drop of a hat if the man wouldn't have threatened him with quitting and becoming a missing-nin if he so much hinted at him having to baby-sit his son. He had lucked up with his own kid and was in no mood to tempt the fates with a blonde whirlwind in miniature. Before leaving he had been ambushed by two Hyuuga kids that wanted to know when they would be able to see Naruto again, promising a date somewhere soon, and finally gone home. Yep, a wonderful day.

Or so it was, up until around three in the morning when he had been woken up by the retching sounds coming from the bathroom. The next hour was spent patting the back of his student and then forcing him into another shower when wearing a mask to sleep when you were feeling sick ended with the expected results.

By five in the morning he finally got the fifteen year old to stop dry heaving long enough have another couple aspirin and fall back asleep. Being too tired to do anything else and wanting to keep an eye on the kid's state, Minato had simply brought a blanket from his room and spent the rest of the night dozing off in the jounin's room. Which was so much like when Daichi got seasick the few times they had missions in large bodies of water it wasn't even funny.

'Thanks, sensei…' Kakashi muttered to the blond, seeing as he guarded his state near him even if he didn't have to do that. At those moments he remembered his own father, even if he really, really didn't want to have the image of that traitor crossing his own mind ever. He blinked his original eye and opened the given one only slightly. The blond's chakra seemed to be disturbed greatly by many strange swirls, even if on the outside he looked perfectly normal. What could have happened?...

'Least I can do for my favorite bodyguard.' the blond said with a smile, pressing a cool hand on the teen's forehead and brushing the slightly sweaty strands. 'Don't worry, you'll feel better soon. Just try to rest a bit and I'll have a doctor come by in a few hours.'

Oh, he would kill his sensei. He shouldn't have let the kid have more than a glass. One thing was to drink the occasional beer or sake, as most kids did nowadays, but another thing was liquor. And especially one that was handmade and didn't come with actual instructions of the alcoholic content. Something would have to be done. He might just ask Chiyo-sama to bathe in those nice hot springs Jiraiya liked to go to seek 'inspiration'.

'You sure look different from usual, sensei'

'Mh? Do I?' he finally removed his hand after adjusting the covers on the teen. 'In what way?'

Kakashi smiled with his usual good natured smile and giggled a little even when if in that state he didn't feel very happy at all. But sensei was always so ridiculous when he didn't notice the elephant in the centre of the room – and usually it was his own room, just like now.

'Yep, you do.' he said, turning to the side and covering himself more with the quilt. He felt a little cold and warm still in such awful way that made one nauseous – nothing like he felt before. But it was probably a price of drinking what real ninjas drank. He was probably not as big as he thought he was after all… 'You're so funny sensei. You talk like if you didn't know that you run a game of tag inside.'

Minato gave the kid a confused look, before finally shrugging.

'I'm… going to do the political thing and smile and nod as if I had any idea of what you are talking about.' It worked with councilors, why not with teens? He rubbed the white haired boy's back a little as he knew it helped a bit when one didn't feel too good… and didn't think too much about what the younger male had said. He had no idea what he could have meant, and as most of the time, Minato decided it wasn't worth agonizing over.

Just a few hours until it was a decent hour to drag some medic here, and then he would have to go pick Chiyo and Daichi and take them to Sarutobi's house… Friends or not, the council wouldn't be too happy if the Kazekage kept visiting, even if they seemed to at least believe he really had been (and still was) sick. Poor Kazekage-too. Going out wouldn't be good for his health this time, either, though hopefully, not as badly as the last time. Absently he brushed his necklace, blinking down on himself when he noticed a cylinder mission. He couldn't help wondering what had driven him to such a gesture. Besides knowing it would mean something to Dai, that is, even if he didn't quite get why.

Kakashi only giggled to the response he's got – his sensei obviously hadn't wanted to talk about it with him, so it was probably something… secretive. He closed his eyes.

'Whatever you say, sensei, I can pretend I don't know what I see…' he muttered into the hand that stroked his hair and dozed off a little. The tiredness made him feel sleepy, even if he was still feeling like vomiting his insides out. Too bad, he really, really liked that tonjiru!... 'But I will get to know sooner or later…'

'Of course, Baby #2…' Minato muttered agreeably, though he wasn't really listening to the kid anymore. His mind had drifted again to the seals he would have to trace. Wrists were kind of tricky to draw on, not to mention actual hands.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The morning was light, breezy, tender and full of dainty. It was fragile and unreal, frail and slight, flimsy, silky, soppy…

'Hey, Daichi.'

He opened his eyes lightly. She stood there, dusted off the cardboard, red hair loosened up in careless tail, the apron of a wife around her belly. She looked young, fresh and absolutely, unhealthily unreal. And so, so not scary.

'Does it feel good?' she asked, turning to him with a smile, the smile of thousands birds that are ready to sing with her laughter, the gold of bells that could sing in her giggles. He didn't move.

'It as in what?' he asked, looking at her hand. White, snow-white, pale white, milky. Beautiful woman.

'As in taste.' she answered, clearing the porcelain vase with care that only women had in their little hands that never got much tougher than theirs, even if they fought with them on battlefield 'Does the lips of my husband feel good?' He looked at her. His lips?... Minato's lips… He looked at the pillow. He tasted them, tasted them finally even if he was taken by surprise. Their taste…

…he couldn't even remember their taste. She laughed at him immediately, crescendo of birds and bells ringing at him with irony, sardonyx, happiness.

'You don't know. You don't remember how his lips taste.' was shot in the air as she turned to the table and wiped it off smoothly, through the papers, like a ghost 'You may have his invisible dimple, but I knew, I always remembered the taste of the mouth of my husband… they taste like Minato.'

He didn't move. Minato?... Yes, minatoish, minatese, that sounded just like it… He moved his lips. No, still nothing. All he could remember was the warmth.

'And his body? How does his body feel? Does it smell of sandalwood?' she propped her elbows on his side, like not her, like not lady that she was, his little Karura was. He knew the answer to that right away.

'He smells of Konoha.' he muttered, not even tossing her a glance 'Like wind, like leaves, like snow in winter… like everything around him.'

'Everything around him?' mused his wife in that smile of hers that was a little too violent, a little too hurt 'Then maybe he is what is around him?'

He budged, out of a nerve, of a habit, not linking the thing with his thoughts of emotions. What was she talking about?

'I don't understand.'

'She means' muttered in front of him. Shadow, black shadow, grey shadow, legs. '…that maybe I'm not there. Am I there at all, Daichi?'

He looked at the person. Light, smooth frame, blond hair, smile. That silky, perturbed smile of his that always mocked him and his sanity.

'Aren't you?' he asked. The figure smiled.

'Why do you hesitate?' he muttered, leaning toward him, without troubles, objections, barriers. He moved his head away at the almost kiss. Minato laughed.

'I know why.' said Yashamaru, meddling with the papers that were not signed, laid off for later. Daichi tsked.

'Stop touching the important documents with your dirty shoes.'

'Since when his dirt matters to you, Suna-nin Daichi.'

He didn't answer. Karura was always a block when it came to Yashamaru. The blond boy started poking the documents with his toes again.

'I know why.' he said with gentle smile 'Because it's not only forest and rivers and snow you feel. It's also the ice that never melted at your touch.'

'So close and so far away.' It was Kushina's time to speak up 'How blinded were you to not see that? Happiness made you a fool and a clown which you never thought you would be so here, have your happy ending, Daichi.'

'Stop being so happy, Daichi.'

'That's right. Because you have no reason to be happy about.'

'Because maybe it's all a game…' Daichi looked at the blond figure in fear. Minato smiled at him '…to test your loyalty.'

Daichi breathed in and out. What was he saying?...

'That's not true.' He protested 'You said you loved me.'

'So I did.' agreed the blond and sat on the bed, touching his forehead lightly, taking the bangs away 'But what is love anyway?'

Daichi stared at him. Minato smiled, not breaking the activity.

'Because I can be cruel…' he hummed, slowly opening his eyes. No spark of warmth glinted in that arctic blue night 'I don't know why…'

Daichi opened his eyelids.

Room.

Room in Konoha. The sun shone through covers. And it shone breezy tender and full of dainty.

He sat on the bed, searching out for the cylinder he left under the pillow. There. There it was… He hugged it to his chest. His heart beat fast.

'Good morning.' he murmured quietly to himself. Nobody answered. Morning. Minato was going to come. To examine him, put seals on him, be there, be there… He hugged it tighter. Somehow, he felt fear. Good morning, Daichi. Good morning, and dance until you break.

He spent the rest of the morning in taking care of himself, cleaning out the papers and sipping on the tea that Chiyo brought him to make him feel better (if the plenty of sugar was any indication), trying to not think, not wonder… It was true, he lost his head. A big mistake in ninja world. But it was also untrue all that was said before. He remembered the taste of those lips. A little fishy, a little sweetish, a little skinny. If that was Minato's taste he was ready to welcome it. He was ready to welcome it all. He brushed off the old woman as she tried to tell him something and absent mindedly cleaned out of the rest of the room. And what if… what if it all was a mistake? What if it was just a faux pass on him and his life?

The thing, when to think of it, had more than less facts to point it out as ridiculous. Because such things never happened. It was not supposed to happen… What if he was too clingy? What if he was too needy? What if he uncovered himself too much? He acted like an idiot. What if? What if? What if? He opened the curtains, making the fain light get inside the room. The sky was clear like a water in the glass. What if it was not true? He looked at the cylinder. What if he made it not true? He closed his eyes. His tattoo could hurt him a little bit. Or made sting. Anything to deprive him from those thoughts. There were just too many. Minato was coming again. But for the first time – he felt anxiety.


	24. Chapter Twenty Four: Sensless sentences

'I'm so sorry!' Minato said even before the old woman tensed the muscled in her jaw to start speaking. 'I came as fast as I could but so many things happened and the day sort of slipped away and I'm so sorry I'm so late-'

Actually, he wasn't late. He had said he would be there around ten in the morning. It was now 10:45 AM, perfectly within range… unless you were a Sunanin. Minato was by nature a punctual person, but Gai had kind of happened to somehow overhear that Kakashi wasn't feeling well and had decided to drop by to visit and provide some youthful and manly support a la green beats of Konoha- which included special secret recipe number seven, which had caused Kakashi another access of vomiting by smell alone, with the Hokage wishing he could join while he was at it.

The following half hour was spent finding a polite way to kick the overenthusiastic jounin out of the house and finally managed it after remembering that once when he was something around the teen's age and they had been near Konoha, Daichi had mentioned that there were lots of Enokitake mushrooms and those were good for something related to poisons…. He didn't even remember if it was that they were good to use FOR poisons or to stop poisons, but that wasn't what mattered at the time- the priority was to get the bowl-cut away from Kakashi before his poor student died of intoxication. It was with such good intentions in his heart that he had told Gai that he had a very challenging mission for him, if he was free to take it.

'Challenging' had on Gai more or less the same effect as saying 'honor' near a Hyuuga, and the man was all good guy pose and blinding smile in a moment. He had been a little less enthusiastic when he understood the mission was getting a good handful of mushrooms to present the Sunanians with, so Minato had dressed it up a bit- very important mushrooms, special present of the highest honor for Kazekage-sama, something about it being key ingredient for ancient Suna technique to cure flu (…or something like that) …and them only being available on the far east side of the village, near the slippery, bottomless cliffs.

Mushrooms are useful not only as food and medicine; some are also being used in bioremediation, to absorb and digest dangerous substances like oil, pesticides and industrial waste, in places where they threaten the environment. Gai smiled at him with dimmed a little as the pearly sweat has shined on his head.

'Sli… slippery, Hokage-sama?...' he said with a gulp.

'It's a deathly plunge down thousands of meters, Maito-kun.' the Hokage said, his expression extremely serious. 'They are a death trap all by their own usually, but now, being winter and with the odd spots of frozen water here and there, every misstep could cause a ninja to fall down.'

For a moment Maito felt his legs shake. Because, think about it… high cliffs no one ever overcame, the ice that made you feel like if you could never stand straight where standing straight was your to be or not to be… the wind, the endless well under him…

…now, that he thought of it… and it was for Kazekage-sama? No wonder!

'Yosh, that feels like a worthy challenge for a worthy person!' he shouted, saluting to the blond 'Going there right away – with my almighty speed and strength it could take a few minutes and if I can't make it in an hour I will jump from those cliffs!'

'No, nonono, take your time… while you are at it, if you would be so kind to bring any other type of mushrooms you see, I'm sure elder Chiyo will appreciate them… Suna is hardly a place where you can get mushrooms after all, and I saw Chiyo-sama looking around the other day, but sadly, there are none around in here because of the snow…'

'Mushrooms? That's nothing for such a person like me!' was the vigorous answer of the great green beast as he made a nice guy pose and flashed the blond with the whiteness of his teeth 'Fear not, great Hokage-sama! I will bring every kind of mushrooms that grow in whole Konoha! Dear good Elder-sama will never forget the kindness of our hometown!'

'I knew I could trust such an important and delicate mission to you Maito-kun.' the Hokage said, thanking the gods for it to be winter and being assured that would entertain the young man for at least enough time for Kakashi to be more himself. After hoarding some more promises of doing it with his hand tied to his back and balancing an egg on a spoon with his teeth while he did it, the dark-haired male finally sprinted off into the sunset (at ten in the morning) , after which Minato was quick to get rid of the special stew (he was pretty sure that poor vanilla tree wasn't a blackened cinder before he tossed the pot's contents on the backyard).

'… you damn better never question my devotion to my students.' he finally had told the younger grey head after giving him a last pat in the head. Hotaru-san, who had been kind enough to offer to pass by and take care of cleaning Kakashi's system of the alcohol before returning to her house after finishing her shift at the hospital had assured him the jounin would be up and about long before either him or Maito returned.

'I wouldn't dare to.' said Kakashi looking at the sensei with relief. Seriously, Gai could be entertaining, but sometimes he did just too much. So good the blond was close 'Maybe I will lend you my book sometime for happiness I just felt… just for you to not forget how to be devoted to your students, sensei.'

He'd thanked the kid and was about to leave when Naruto had one of his strange, rare, and completely out of the blue fits of real battiness and decided that if his dad could get to see his friends, he should be able to do so too and demanded for him to take him with him to see Gaara. It had taken Minato several minutes of patiently explaining his beloved baby that being grounded gave him no rights to make demands, that the Kazekage and him would be visiting Sandaime-sama and that the Sunanin would never agree to leave the kids to their own devices, no matter how boring to be alone it got, that Gaara had siblings to play with (which summed another fifteen minutes regarding why couldn't Naruto have that baby sister he wanted to much)…

He had finally managed to convince him to stay and take care of Kakashi after he told him he was the last line of defense in case Gai decided to make a surprise return, in which case he would have to resort to any means to keep him from trying to poison Kakashi again. And now he was forty five minutes late by Suna standards, which meant more or less immediate decapitation if memory served him right.

'I'll make it up to you?' he gave the old woman an irresistible smile. The woman rose her old eyebrow, bouncing back the irresistible smile with gloom of doom defense. The murderous silence followed. Then she continued on clinking the spoon against the fragile tea cup she decided to drink from in Konoha and steal it away later as she always did in her young years. It was not like she could get any in her place, steal many as she never really wandered out of Suna lately or that they would miss it – they had twenty of those in the cupboard in order of people in army.

'Three.' she finally said.

Minato shrunk back a little.

'Three... firstborns? I'm afraid I only have one...'

The spoon clicked dangerously loud in the cup and stopped. She eyed the blond with terrifying glare.

'But of course!' she bellowed in haunted voice 'Your three firstborns, your sweat and tears! First one should be baked in dough with cherries and strawberries on the top of frosty icing made of whipped cream, second one covered in marzipan with dried oranges and peaches and third full of that stupid coffee just to make my grandson feel joy of life… from affair, ho ho ho!...' The elder started laughing merrily with closed eyes for a moment, then she looked at the blond.

'And of course, a pack of milky cookies from that white-haired pervert of yours. He said he will never bake me anything once I complained about them so much but since I haven't had too much to complain about with your average cooking skills I need a total disaster in menu. Deal?'

Minato stroked his chin, pretending to think about it.

'How about… a coffee one for your brat of a grandson, a cheesecake for gracious Chiyo-sama, and I'll forget reports of this oh-ho-hoing little person strolling through the Nara compound in the middle of the night…?'

The laughter of Chiyo was stopped like if he cut it off with an axe. She looked at him with serious stare, too fixed, piercing, looking at him in the eyes with research… If talk was pair of cards, then Minato just threw off quads and waited for her reaction. So that was how he played. She couldn't be one hundredth percent sure, but it was never needed with such an intuition she had. There was too much to be hidden and too much seen already to not get suspicious, to not think… She looked into her cards. Sadly, she hasn't got a straight.

She narrowed her eyes.

'Oh, I'm sorry, I think I changed my mind.' she said, drinking up the rest of her tea with leisure move 'I'm old. Too much of sweets wouldn't be good for my body anyway. Or for my grandson. He wouldn't feel good to be something sold for a pack of cookies to be with someone who makes only pastries. Kazekage-sama only eats sour food of his own homeland.'

'Smart lady.' Minato said, smiling at her sweetly. 'Just for that you'll get a bagful of assorted Konoha mushrooms, to be delivered today by one of my jounin, with my deepest apologies for making an elder wait so long.'

He might even make there that cheesecake, if he felt like it on the following days.

'How have things been?' he asked casually, not alluding directly to the seal or the fact it had been activated. 'I hope it didn't cause Gaara-sama any distress.'

The tea was drank in silence. He was not thinking she was corrupted enough to buy himself in, right? He was a brat, but too smart for that. But pack of Konoha's mushrooms – that sounded promising.

'Thank you.' she said, letting the cup stand on the plate and making the spoon clink on the empty dish 'The kid was acting as usual, it seems that the sand is too allured by something else o be interested in anything that might be happening to it soon. But I have no idea what causes that.' she said, not looking the blonde in the eye. 'I bet it would be hard to miss if it happened otherwise.'

The smile was kind of hard to keep in place - all he needed was to be within twenty meters to have the sand attempt to start crawling over him. He had figured out why, too… His scar, the one that covered the mayor part of his chest. Apparently, the raccoon took it as a serious pointer. And if he liked him so much, then Naruto… How strange it was that it wouldn't react to Daichi being infused with its own chakra… Maybe it didn't register it as a treat exactly for the same reason the poison didn't kill the older man? He hadn't thought it possible, at the least the creature should be curious. Besides, it hadn't attempted to attack any other passerby's, except small mammals and birds stupid enough to get too close to the house. Maybe the water had intimidated it…?

'Anyway, we should head off to Sandaime-sama's house. Sensei is already waiting there. Is Kazekage-sama ready?'

Chiyo let out a cackle, like usual, then she got up, taking the plate with her along with spoon and the cup.

'When I checked him in the morning he seemed to be absolutely messed up. Almost couldn't understand why his left shoe doesn't fit his right leg, like a little kid.' she murmured, cleaning the dishes with detailed moves 'He might as well be sitting in the middle of room and wonder where his robes are while he could be sitting on them. I don't know.'

Minato made a face.

'That's odd, yesterday his fever was gone… Are you sure he isn't going to get sick again..?' Of course, he had an idea about what was wrong with Daichi, but he wouldn't be able to do anything about it for a very long time, so it was just better to make sure first it wouldn't be the obvious answer.

'Oh no, his body is perfectly fine.' said the old woman, tossing him a searching glance from her shoulder 'It seems that he just decided to change his mood during the night, almost like if he dreamed out himself a new problem to mop around. But I don't understand that brat for most of the time, so I can't tell you what's with that.'

Minato shrugged half heartedly.

'I kind of understand him, he must be worried. After doing this, we will have to test them, after all…' he sighed, rubbing the back of his head. 'And after the other day… has he tried to talk to Gaara-sama? The poor kid was traumatized and Kazekage-sama reacted as one would expect of him, Gaara-sama didn't even want to let him touch him afterwards.'

Chiyo finally closed the tap and wiped out her hands, turning to Minato.

'Only once.' she said, letting her breath out and her chest to inflate 'When the sand was getting too nervous as the new meat was brought home. It worked perfectly well, as usual. But I don't think it lasted long, the doors slammed like if two people came in and out at the same time.'

Minato made a face at that- it really saddened him, the things such a sweet kid had to go through for his father's mistakes… How different would things have been if Karura hadn't died…? Daichi loved his kids. He might be stern with them, but Minato remembered how absurdly proud he'd been when Temari was born, even though she had been a girl and Daichi had always been kind of male chauvinistic-ish…

'Well, let's go get his royal highness. I'm not getting paid for this after all.'

With one last half-hearted comment regarding her to get something warm to wear as it was snowing again, Minato went to the wing destined for the Kazekage, nodding at the ninja in place and politely ignoring the ones hidden, until he finally reached Daichi's room. He would have liked to talk with Baki beforehand, but id the looks Chiyo had been giving him were any sign, this was the worst moment for such a thing. He just nodded to the jounin and knocked on the door, waiting an appropriate time before opening the door- leaving it wide open.

'Good morning, Kazekage-sama. I apologize for the delay.' he said, rising his hands in a forgiveness-asking gesture. 'How are you feeling?'

'Ah, Min-' The other man turned around from the window he was looking through at, then stopped in the middle of the sentence and something that could be either a smile or a grimace of anger and looked at the blond. Then at the door. Then at the gran, jounin that seemed to be peaking in and the opened door yet again. Then at the blond. Slowly, his face melted into a mask of indifference as it lost color of three tones. 'Good.' he said in a ghastly quiet tone as he turned to the window again, fidgeting with something in his hands and hiding it in the pocket on his breast. The sky was still clear like a water in the transparent glass. For some reason, in this completely silent and calm room, he heard an echo of malicious laughter. He didn't react to it.

Minato's smile didn't dim at all, though he couldn't help feeling a bit guilty. He'd make it up to Daichi… Somehow.

'Wonderful.' he said, not missing a beat 'Then please, do go ahead and dress your frail, weakish Suna-body as you need to attend the invite of Sandaime-sama.'

The other man nodded, not even responding to the scatty comment and started dressing up in his robes for snow filled weather in quick, precise moves he usually made when he packed himself with weapons for battlefield. In less than half of a minute, he was covered so much only his eyes could be visible from the hood he moved onto his head and the ridiculous big scarf on his neck. As soon as it came out, Chiyo wore the similar clothing. He avoided looking at the blond. Not now, not… Like that. His eyes were hidden and could lie well, but they were only eyes after all. If Karura could read the guilt out of them, then anyone else could read out everything else from his soul. And that as not his intention in such a big group of people.

'Let's go.' he muttered and moved forward.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Sarutobi-sensei had been more than interested in the seal on the back of Daichi's neck. It had taken a long glare from the elder to make the Kazekage grit his teeth and remove his shirt, leaving only the fishnet, Jiraiya-sensei moving closer to take a look. That day, it looked like a healing normal tattoo- inked skin still looking a little too tender, but otherwise, nothing that hinted to the disaster Daichi had caused himself almost a week ago.

'This really could work…'

Mnato heard his sensei mutter, almost as if he disliked the idea. Of course it could work. It would work. Minato would have never put Daichi's life if he hadn't known the man could take it, and more important, that it would work. It was imperfect, it wasn't a long term solution and it was more than just complicated,. But it was a good idea and it would work. He wasn't worried about the seals and how to put them to use… what he worried about was Daichi. It was obvious that leaving the door open had hurt him, though he couldn't understand why. What did the redhead expect, for him to close it when everyone was breathing down their necks? Maybe the redhead's ninja didn't exactly know what was going on, but they were curious, but Chiyo definitely suspected.

Closing the door just to say 'Hey, long time no see, let's hurry' wouldn't have made and shouldn't be done. Daichi himself would have pointed that out, and yet… he kept acting so unlike himself. It was frustrating- because a part of Minato, a strangely large and almost dominating part was so happy. Daichi had always prided himself on his control and in following the rules of a shinobi… and yet there he was, making academy-level mistakes on emotional training. For him. Was the need of his approval (of something s silly as his attention!) that deep? He would have never taken Daichi to be such a needy creature. He was so strong and reassured and self-imposed that to him it had always seemed like if it would take the Armageddon to make him falter.

And now he was hurt for something as stupid as him not giving him five minutes of privacy. The analytical, captain-ish part of himself still claimed strongly for giving Daichi a good slap and tell him to suck it up until the mission was over. But that wouldn't be possible. He wasn't Daichi's captain anymore and what happened between them was as important as what they would do with those seals.

By finally admitting to the other he had always had feelings for him, Minato had fought with himself long and hard- Daichi knew he was loved by him, what would stop him from simply going away? He had forgotten the only person that seemed to think and act that way in this world was himself. Minato had never had to despair over other's feelings, only his own. He had known Kushina liked him before she did, and he had been aware of Daichi's attraction as soon as that wedding comment had been made in his direction. He had never had to stop and ponder what ifs and maybes, it had just been a matter of waiting and playing out to what he wanted and seeing the results.

Normal people needed some sort of bones, of proof… Apparently Daichi needed to be held and stroked and shown such things to be happy. He had been happy when he was held and had wordlessly asked for more in such a childish way- Minato didn't get it. Those were the things he thought about as he copied the designs from the paper into the older man's hands. One would be in his forearm, and would, like the rest, very likely extend in some form of mark. The other was set as some sort of half-glove on his right hand.

He kept thinking on the topic as they finally finished sterilizing the needles and donned the gloves and finally started working on the design. Tattooing was something that was entertaining to watch for only so long, and the old lady had had her fair share of it the other night, so she was quick to let her attention be taken away by Sarutobi-sensei as they both started talking about things that had happened long before either of the current Kages had been born. Jiraiya was more vigilant, but not really much, as Minato was impossible to distract when it came to seals. He never talked much while doing them, except to ask the redhead to move, not scratch himself or ask him if he wanted a break.

It took a while, but his attention finally diverted as well by the time Minato finished tracing the contours of the forearm seal and moved to the hand. It was a good thing he did, too, because as soon as he did, the blond smiled to himself and stroked the redhead's hand gently before starting to work on the right hand.

Daichi budged. His first instinctive reaction was to move was to take the hand away and hold it close to chest or even hide behind himself – but he tamed it. Instead, he let his hand relax and tossed a glance toward Minato – it was just to look at him, nothing more. Then he got back to sitting still. What the blond thought he was doing? Here? Where three pairs of the most trained eyes on the ninja world were ready to catch every glimpse of their breathing or lack of it? He had his time before and he could have used it well – but he didn't, so reaching out to him now seemed to be more than a joke, bad and sick. And what was the worst, it felt like if he was imprinting his touch into his hand, bolting it down with sterile needles and poisonous ink. He almost wanted to wash his hand.

Beside the fact he didn't. Because all he wanted was to be close to the blond in any possible way, and yet, he couldn't. Almost like if someone told him that fruit behind a glass was his to hold but didn't remove the glass. He felt sick. He knew that love in ninja world was not something to be cherished and sang about, especially not love that wasn't allowed. And this one was the most forbidden of all kinds – two men in relationship after so many obstacles, with kids, being leaders of the village? Such things happened only once in a lifetime.

If it happened, that was it. He remembered how strange and cruel Minato could be when he was testing something – he could kill in long spans of time if he didn't have to hurry, his lack of empathy showing in lack of mercy. Daichi usually opted for killing quickly, to have no regrets and end the tortures like he wished he would die himself if he had to die in battlefield. But Minato didn't do that and also didn't have any regrets.

Minato was a human of strange kind. Now that he knew that he had always felt, thought about him more than just a brother then what was this lack of reactions? Is that how Minato loved? Or could it be he couldn't even understand the concept of that feeling? Because he seemed to not be fond of closeness, not attached to him, not craving his contact. He knew that mission was mission, but even he had problems with concentrate on behaving like if he felt nothing at all and Minato just… did this. How was that possible to control yourself like that?

Or maybe it really was… testing. Or a play. But how come when they've been deprived of contact for so many years? Daichi knew his obsession was unhealthy, but the lack of responses in the other man was also not something one saw every day. Or was it because he had been married to the girl he chose above him that made him satisfied and complete? Even for so long?... What would have happened if Kushina lived?

He gritted his teeth in the pain and tried to not scratch the new spot on his back that itched for his attention. One would have thought he should be able to get used to the feeling already, but he wasn't. More, it seemed like if the one on his neck started responding to it, sending ghosts of itches also, making him want to claw at the feeling. Poison never felt good inside the healthy body. No, he couldn't think like that. If Kushina was alive there probably would something bad happen. Something very, very bad. He didn't want to think about what. It didn't matter. She was gone.

He glanced at the blond again, repressing the need to tell him he was an idiot because by that simple touch of his palm he made him think many needless thoughts and made him feel as warm as if he shone the light at him and took it away again, leaving him needy and unsatisfied. And that it felt bad and that he didn't want it and if he was supposed to be fed with such scrubs, he'd rather get back to complete starving that made him feel like if he was about to scream, but at least didn't deepen his hunger and need for attention. He bit on his lips at one deeper sting and unconsciously looked at the man through half closed eyelids, like if he wanted to start a telepathic discussion.

He didn't. But the way blond looked was overwhelming and he could never had enough of how he looked like. How his hair dangled when he owed down, how his skin sweated in the warm temperature of the room, how his eyes kept on being concentrated and flared in dark cyan in this dim light or how his hands made quick precise moves that could be only expected of fourth Hokage.

He loved him and he loved those looks. But he knew he would always love it – he did for past fifteen years and didn't stop when he saw how veins started to show on his arms, diluting the image of perfect skin or how the lines on his face deepened, even if the first small wrinkles were not as visible yet, but soon. He knew he would love him if he became limbless or bald or fat or blind, deaf or even paralyzed. Because he loved the man for a light he had within. Or maybe he was just being high on stress, because if the man got a hit on the head and changed into a lovesick doggy he wouldn't recognize him anymore. And it was hard to love for memory that was never supposed to be there.

Or maybe he was just a weak human whose obsession didn't reach deep wells at all. He closed his eyes. He was so shallow in his feelings. He opened his mouth to speak but closed them. Walls had ears, people in the room also had a good pair of them – no whisper would go undetected. And some questions shouldn't be asked. Like… Why do you love me after so many years? How can you love me again for having loved Kushina? You know she disapproves of us, right? She disapproves of us through your son's eyes… you know that, right? I love you… I love you… I do… I do… He loves me… He loves me not… He loves me…

…loves me not? The fire danced before his very own eyes just like before, an old dance since the beginning of times. It felt lulling, even at that time of the morning. The poison stung.

Normally, the blond would have just felt irritated at Daichi not reacting as he was supposed to -he hadn't spent years analyzing his reasons and reactions for him to throw him off at the last minute after all… but at the moment he just felt disappointed. It was a worry-like sort of disappointment, as Daichi was being too silent and too serious and more than likely thinking poisonous things, and that worried Minato.

He knew he was loved by the older man, and he was safe in that knowledge, but the problem Minato had –the problem he had always had, through all of his life- was the fact that while he knee people thought and reacted differently than him, that didn't mean he understood what that really meant. He knew other people wanted and needed different things, like he knew that embarrassing as it might be, it made Kakashi happy when he pampered him a bit. Like he knew his sensei worried about the way he saw and reacted to things, like he knew Naruto was both frustrated and angry at the way he was treated by most of the Villagers, and just like he knew that when he finally told him the reason, there were chances it would be something Naruto might not be able to forgive of him.

All of these things he understood, as they had clear causes and reasons. Daichi's hadn't. He knew that leaving the link of his necklace would be something that would be nice to do, though he didn't really know why. Probably as a sort of symbol, but he didn't exactly know what kind of emotional attachment Daichi would give such an object. He had given it to him simply because he knew it was something that would make the other happy, but then why was he acting like this now…? He had already admitted his feelings for him and it was obvious they wouldn't be able to do much with so many eyes set on them, so why was he getting so hurt over something so silly…? What did Daichi want, for him to get up and declare his undying devotion for him in front of everyone?

Sure, that might be something classified as romantic, but romantic people tended to do stupid things and die young, just look at Romeo and Juliet. Personally, he felt they deserved what happened for being both such a pair of imbeciles. Minato wasn't going to just give up on Daichi, and complicated or not, he wanted to have a relationship with him. For that relationship to happen it needed to be an absolute secret. And that wouldn't happen as long as Daichi kept acting bizarrely and everyone was breathing down their necks.

Minato didn't understand Daichi, or what he wanted or what he needed, but at least he was aware of this. Logic dictated the fastest and easiest way to deal with the issue was to address the source, so he would have to actually talk with the man, alone. Prime opportunity presented itself with the moment he would teach him how to properly use the seals. Which would take more or less a week until the redhead cleared the infection…. Too far away. There wasn't anything he could do about it now. So he didn't.

He didn't remove his hand from where it was as he saw no reason to do so, but after the initial failure, Minato simple withdrew into his work, letting the repetitive motions lull him into an automatic state of cleanse-ink needle-jab needle-jab-jab-jab-cleanse, almost unaware of the slowly rising temperature of the hand he held ostensively for adjustment purposes. It took him a relative short time to finish the lining at this pace, and after giving a small pause for Daichi to rest a bit and have something to drink, he set with Jiraiya to start filling the marks.

And Daichi felt hot. Several hours later, the hotness didn't cease. Oh, welcome the torture yet again. Sure, he felt giddy after the whole experiment and he again felt like if he could run on top of the mansion forward and back, but he kept it to himself. The dread filling his insides also made him feel a little anxious about running anywhere at all so he just let his mouth speak faster and his hands tap everything and everyone that happened to be under it (not that anyone actually happened to be suitable to be tapped at) and almost ran back to his room where he started arranging the papers – first, without much thinking, then with more thinking, then with absolute thinking but lack of strength and finally – without strength and brain to do anything. And then he started sweating.

Oh great. Welcome, ye pain. Didn't miss you, but who cares!... He clenched his jaws as they started to clatter, too much stress with too much pain and poison. And itching. The annoying hurtful itching that burned and made him sting so much he knew that the slightest scratch would hurt like if he decided to scratch through, but he decided to do it anyway. And then he just lied on his chest and prayed for peace. Gods. Where was Minato with his glass of water now?...

He managed to not think of him for so long as his mind was in swirl of emotions a for a few hours ago, but now the dread hit him twice as hard_. Where Was Minato Now_? Now, as he was in pain? Hiding in secret? Or maybe observing him from affair? Pretending nothing was happening? Sleeping off his work?

Whatever it was, he wanted to be with him. Just to ease the pain. To be distracted. To feel he was not left alone on his own at least this once when he was promised that someone out there could be with him. Despite logic. Despite anything at all. But he knew he couldn't. His needs and wants didn't go well with his reasoning and he knew what was more important and what counted more in this world. Not emotions but steely cold logic. But he couldn't stop his emotions by reasoning, just s he could never really bend his brain with his heart back when all he wanted to shout at him that he loved him, loved him so much!...

But now, when he had it, his brain was on the lost position. He turned his head to stare at the door and burn a hole in them to maybe, maybe see someone out there. But as usual, his lack of sharingan made the best of him. He closed his eyes. He didn't give him back the cylinder. But it was too far away from him now to grab it. He didn't really want to have it close now. It would remind him too much as now he remembered every touch, every look he gave him through these long torturous hours. He was so in love… so, so much… and yet, even as if it was two sided love he still couldn't even lick the candy as the wrap was still on it, closed tightly.

Somehow, Kushina still had more of Minato than he did. Even now.

'See? I told you he is mine.' whispered above him in breezy, chiming tone. He grimaced. Oh yes he was. He didn't answer her. He couldn't. Because he had no words for answer to such statement. So he lied in silence. And missed, terribly missed Minato.

Minato's too busy to miss Daichi. Besides, he has no reason too, the redhead is perfectly safe and sound less than a kilometer away, so if he had any need to go see him, he would. But he doesn't, because it would amount to nothing. First, it would only rile Daichi up when he needs to rest the most. He could do something emotionally exhausting, but he's grown tired of it, and now the problem is that not only is Chiyo giving him long looks, but that Jiraiya sensei has noticed that and now is giving him longer looks. Because the perverted sage needed someone else throwing more wood into the burning pile of dirty thoughts he had for a brain. And now Jiraiya had decided to stay at his house, instead of randomly rooming in with them, his sensei and wherever he left to be alone.

Not even Kakashi and his endless requests for sequels were enough to drive him away. Not that he wanted him to… he loved his sensei. He would just love him more if he wasn't following him around like a disapproving mother waiting to catch her son fapping to her lingerie magazines.

'What are you doing?' Minato looked down at the three kids next to him. He didn't know what they were doing, but he knew what he was.

'Cheesecake.'

His sensei casually strolled in, nearly tripped in an oddly colored stain in the floor (that Minato would not be cleaning, thank you, that's what cleaning ladies were for) and looked down at him.

'Why cheesecake?'

'Because cheesecakes are healthier than the cake Chiyo-sama asked for?' he measured the cream cheese and left another handful of berries in front of the kids to distract them form the disaster that they were making in the kitchen and put two raspberries in his mouth, enjoying the tart flavor. 'Old ladies shouldn't eat that much sugar.'

'How thoughtful, Minato-kun.' Jiraiya, barely avoiding a running Naruto carrying a bowl filled with flour and climbed up the counter, helping himself to some blueberries. 'I don't suppose those would be good for people who are sick as well..?' Minato didn't feel like playing around, so he answered straightly.

'Daichi-kun doesn't like sweets and you are starting to become rather annoying in your old age, Jiraiya-sama.'

'Ohh… so it's Daichi-kun now…'

'As it's been since I was fifteen and stopped called him sempai, and you know that, sensei.' The man made a face, obviously not wanting to agree to something that was true weather he denied it or not.

'You are getting too friendly with the foreigners, Minato.' the older man told him. 'It might give him the wrong ideas.'

Wrong ideas! Everything in Daichi's mind was a wrong idea, so there wasn't much surprise in there. He told him he loved him and now he was miserable over that. And the worst part was that he was just frustrated because he would have liked to do something nice for the older nin, but couldn't because a) he didn't know what to do b) even if he knew he wouldn't be able to do it because people kept breathing down their necks. At least Kakashi wasn't here to listen to this conversation… The teen had needed to go into a small mission and wouldn't be back for at least another day. And the kids were too busy with whatever they were trying to prepare and devouring the berries, so no odd questions from that part.

'N-Neji-niisan, I think that's too much baking soda…'

'Neji, I think you should leave measuring to Hinata-chan.' Minato couldn't help but agree. In his experience, baking soda was to be added in pinches and coffee spoons, not soup ones.

The long haired kid turned his serious white eyes to the blond, holding up the soup spoon almost like if it was a sacred artifact and not a cooking utensil. Then he looked back at the dough.

'I thought the bigger they will be the bigger they will grow.' he said truthfully. Wasn't it like that always? The bigger effort you made, the more successful you were, the more chakra you used the more powerful was the punch… 'Isn't that right, Hokage-sama?...'

Minato stopped the running around his mind with being mad, frustrated and feeling useless long enough to give the spoon another dubious look and run again the sentence to make sense of what had just been asked at him.

'Well… I look at cooking as to making bombs and try to follow the recipe.' the blond said with a smile. 'Sure, more powder will make the resulting boom bigger, and while at it blow your hands right off. I would give a try to following the actual recipe.'

'Nice advice, Minato.' the white haired man said, stuffing his pipe with tobacco and litting it up. 'Maybe you should actually follow it.'

It was like academy all over again. All that was missing was the older man trying to tell him what nights he could stay out and what was his curfew schedule.

'Sensei... please leave the euphemism to your literary work. That was just forced.' Cue sour look from the man. Great, now he hurt his feelings.

'Look, sensei.' he said tiredly 'I know you mean well, and you worry or me, and I'm very, very grateful… but I'm old enough to take care of myself. I'm not going to get pushed down and done anything by anyone.' Unless he felt like it. 'And don't smoke with the kids around!'

Damn it, he didn't stop smoking when Kushina told him she was pregnant just so his sensei would start polluting his babies lungs every time he turned around. Neji looked at the blond making a fuss over the white haired man then looked into the bowl with cookie dough, wondering how to make the work of soda better than now. He tried to think Hokage-sama's way – if you overdid the powder, to nullify the bomb's working you had to…

'…make more dough!' he said, ending his thoughts with the most brilliant idea ever. No wonder he was a genius. He didn't even have to end up thinking to know the salvation. 'Hinata-sama, we will be making more cookie dough! Naruto-sama, please, add more… ah, not cookie chips! We won't have enough for cookies!...'

'We can put berries on it? They taste fine.' the blond added, taking another few blueberries and munching on them happily. Minato nearly wept. What had possessed him to get the Hyuuga kids to his home when he knew Kakashi wouldn't be there to help him and then attempt to cook when it was obvious they would try to do the same? He decided to blame it on the Kazekage. It was immature and petty, but it made him feel a little better about himself, so he went with it for a little while.

He hadn't even mean to bring the kids back with him. After finishing tattooing Daichi, they all had left without him having a chance to speak privately with him (and he had thought the new steps on their relationship would make the idiot stop running away, but it seemed old habits died hard...) so he had gone back home, where he had been told that Kakashi wasn't sick anymore but he still had ran to hide when Gai finally returned, which left him now with a son sporting the cutest orange loose-sock-like weights of doom as Gai had convinced him they were great training material. So apparently the raging green beats of Konoha had survived the cliffs. He would have to get one of his secretaries to land him one of the books they used to identify mushrooms as a gift to the older woman.

Doubtlessly, the boy would have brought them a nice pile of them and she would need them.

The next day he had ordered the book to the Akimichi's, as it turned they were the ones who did them, sent Kakashi in his mission, did kage business until the council called to inform him with a sincerely regrettable-looking Sarutobi that after yesterday's visit Kazekage-sama seemed to be back with high fevers and would be extending his stay a little more, and more or less subtly told him to go check if it was possible to make him leave as the weather was obviously upsetting him.

Minato, who never got along well with the council after they had told him he had to kill his son, did what he always did – gave them a sweet little smile that meant he would verbally agree to whatever they said and then do whatever he wanted. Kicking out the leader of an allied nation when he was sick wasn't something you just did because a bunch of old geezers told you so. To sweeten things up he mentioned that he would be getting Naruto a tutor and had asked the Hyuugas to make a list of possible candidates, which was accepted graciously by the three elders- and less graciously by the one to be tutored.

He had been expecting a negative from his son, though, so he let him rant until he tired himself out and then explained him that if h ever wanted to become a kage a she claimed he did so much. It would be his duty to know politics and basic knowledge that you didn't really get at the academy. It took him a while and somehow the blonde managed to extract a promise out of him that when he started being tutored he'd get to start actual training, which made him think that his son might have more future in politics than anticipated. And Kakashi and the bells should keep him entertained for a good long time, at least.

The next day he had gone to the Hyuuga manor again to personally thank Hizashi's wife for the help she had given her student, especially as her shift was over, and also ask her about her opinion on regards of the list the twins had made for him, as women had better intuition than men did in those things and Minato was notoriously not one , which helped him narrow down the list a good bit. Now he just have to interview them and figure out which one was made of strong enough material to survive his son three hours a day six days of the week.

On his way out he had been ambushed by the same pair of pearly-eyed kids, and following an impulse, had informed that he was kidnapping them and would return them after dinner. And now here he was. With a sensei that insisted on thinking him some pure innocent little lamb about to be devoured by the big bad Kazekage wolf, and three kids decided to make the cleaning lady weep (no, he still wasn't going to clean after them) And still no idea what to do about Daichi or the situation they were in.

'But soon there will be not enough berries too!' And as untrue as it seemed, Neji knew what he was talking about. He had nice eyes and already counted all the berries and if each one of the wanted a fair amount of cookies soon there would be not enough to bake them all.

'And chips cookies without chips don't taste as good as cookies with chips of fruits and chocolate!' he said, eating one of the few chocolate chips to emphasize his point. True, true. Chocolate was a very good one, rich and tasty in this dark, bitter taste. Cookies without it wouldn't be half as good as cookies with it '…or, for example, berries! It's completely the same, Naruto-sama!...' And to pinpoint his good point, to berries ended up in Hyuuga's youngest heir mouth following the fate and destiny of rich piece of chocolate.

'A-actually!' The girl explained, making the whole male population of the room turn around to stare at her in amazement. It was always a rare occasion when the girl raised her voice to be heard over the normally much louder companions. '…a-a-actually.' she repeated, hiding slightly on the lower part of her parka and starting to play with her thumbs shyly.

'I… think that Hokage-sama is right and… we should follow the recipe, at least the first time…?' she looked around for approval, but finding just expectant faces hid lower in the plush of her clothes. 'I mean... it's the first time I bake them and I want them to come out right… for…Hanabi-chan…' the last was barely a mumble.

'That's right, Hinata-sama! You're completely right!' said Neji in a leadership's voice of a man who leaded the ships on stormy waters 'And besides, Gaara-sama wouldn't probably like them baked wrong, isn't that right, Naruto-sama? We need to follow the recipe!'

And he ate another berry.

'Hanabi-chan… Your baby sister?' the blond asked, sounding surprised. 'Isn't she… a baby?'

'She's almost a year and a half, Naruto-kun…'

'But don't babies need to eat soft things…?'

'Yes, but she's starting to teeth, so she can eat small bits of food as long as they are not too hard.'

And as a baby, she thoroughly drooled on everything that went to her mouth, so that would probably take care of the softness factor. Minato just stared at her, once again surprised by the little girl's sensitivity. Really, how did Hyuuga manage to make such nice kids in such a house…? The only plausible explanation was that all the crazy on their bloodlines became so concentrated it cancelled itself out of self preservation.

'That's really nice of you, Hinata-sama.' he told the girl, smiling down at her and causing her blush to redouble. 'But she's just a baby…' his son protested, obviously disliking his own experiences with Konohamaru, who was barely starting to walk and followed him around whenever they were in close proximity. That limited the freedom he had to run around and escape.

'She won't even remember you did it for her!'

'I'm sure she'll remember.' The girl said, with a small smile, climbing back on the chair she was using to lean on the counter and shaking off the excess of baking soda back into the little cup, until she had what was the amount required for the recipe. 'I remember Neji bro gave me something sweet when I was very, very little. It made me very happy.'

Neji blinked a few times, surprised, then blushed a little, looking at the floor. What was it… did she really remember him doing that?... He would have never suspected it…

'But it was only a gummy bear…' he said, regaining his pose, even if the blush still stayed on his cheeks '…but I'm grateful for your memory, Hinata-sama! That makes me want to do it much more for Hanabi-sama!'

Because if that's really how it worked, then why not make more people happy? It was always better when one smiled than cried after all. Destiny was destiny, but you could always smile a bit more while walking a path to the doom so you could have something to remember in your last days.

The indigo-haired girl smiled at her cousin and offered him a strawberry, knowing those were the ones he liked best. Minato stared in amazement at the kids. So small gestures were remembered, no matter how stupid and small they seemed to be… and Daichi…

'Hey, daddy…?

'Yes, Naruto?' he asked, too distracted by his thoughts to noticed the warning bells that question provided all on itself. '…why can't I have a baby sister, too…?'

Minato twitched, muttered something intangible and turned to his teacher for help- only to find the space the older man had been occupying void of white-haired super-perverts. He narrowed his eyes.

Coward.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The next day Minato barely waited long enough for his teacher to be dragged, bruised and bleeding by an angry mob of kunoichi and civilians, before depositing a confused mini blond in his arms and warning him he was on sitter duty until he came back or Kakashi did, and if he taught inappropriate things to his son, he would wish he had been a lightning nin on the third shinobi war before he was through with him.

With Jiraiya and baby safely taken care of at the same time, Minato caught the book and the cheesecake he had finished and decidedly marched for the house the Kazekage was in. He had a good excuse for both parts, he had means of diversion for the old lady and all he needed was about a minute to explain to Baki what he needed and hope Daichi wouldn't be in a state to make a scandal.

'Good morning, Chiyo-sama.' he greeted, sweatdropping at the fact the old lady seemed to still be classifying the assortment of mushrooms, if the fact the floor was covered in bed sheets and the woman was literally caning Suna shinobi into getting them separated in groups and how to preserve them. 'I see you have started Suna therapy early this morning…' he said with a nervous laugh, before offering her the bag with the cake and the book.

'I thought this might help.'

'Oh! Oh, dear sand gods, that's what I needed, just in time, brat!' There was a quick sidestepping and a flash between the legs as something grey passed by and grabbed…

…the cheesecake just to get back to the beginning position. '…just when I was starting to get hungry from all this appetizing shroomies, ho ho ho!' Two of the ANBUs caught themselves through the masks pointing that if anything, they were more close to actually showing what they ate for breakfast instead of trying out what was brought in, but the elder didn't seem to mind. Actually, she was more than pleased. It meant more for her. And that book… was suspiciously great and just in time thing too…

'Leave it on the counter, son, I'm sure it will be useable…' she added between one bite and second '…maybe it will lessen the awful aftertaste I'm going to get after this absolutely not good cake I did not tell you to make… such a brat you are.' Two ANBUs seemed to tense up at such crude language, not knowing if to guard the elder or if to wait for the attack of the Hokage, but others waved them back to the normal statures. Chiyo started laughing again.

'Calm down, you lazy bums and start collecting the right shrooms to right partnering groups, you have a little help there, use it well.' she muttered, leaving the cheesecake on the floor between those poisonous mushrooms and those not poisonous ones, which looked exactly the same to all ANBUs, only not to her as she could smell a poison from miles away 'As for Kazekage-sama, I'd suggest not disturbing him now, he is resting after a long night of dancing in the rain. Right, boys?'

ANBUs sniggered bitterly through the masks, which could be barely detectable. Yes, of course. The fever of Kazekage reached high peaks at the third of the morning and he started having nightmares about rain falling on the dessert and turning it into arctic area. He just kept on shouting about his life and sacrifices going to waste, calling out people, who were either already dead but still alive in his hallucinations that seemed to die, then he kept on talking with himself, not pointing out the answers, but from what they understood, it was a hard talk with women, probably dear Karura-sama…

Only after a heavy dosage of jutsu who seemed to work slowly, too slowly, he calmed himself down. Until then they had to walk with him around the room, as he seemed to have such hard hallucinations he made his body move and seeing what he did it was dangerous to leave him alone – he could run away naked into the cold night or harm someone as he kept on trying to save dead people… Yes, if he was only half third as tired as they were, he probably had aaalll riiight to rest. Without worries, of course, because they were there, keeping an eye on him, making sure that he would be under observation of awakened eyes nonstop, collecting mushrooms since five in the morning, mumblemumblegrumblegroan…

'Well, if Elder Chiyo-sama doesn't deem the cake worthy of her palate, maybe we should split the slices evenly on the shinobi that you have been working to death.' Minato answered with a amiable smile. 'I'm sure they would appreciate the calorie intake, regardless of the taste.'

The elder eyed him for a moment, then split the cake into quick small portions that could be taken as one bites at the time and showed them to the group of people beside her.

'Wanna have some?' ANBUs stilled. It was not polite to not accept whatever a kage said was good for them, but it would not be good in consequences to accept such an invitation from Elder Chiyo-sama as everyone knew how she cherished sweets but then, if Hokage-sama said so himself with such a pressure it would be bad to refuse but then those mushrooms smelt so bad that they already felt like if they could use a toilet and not exactly for peeing but then the cheesecake was offered to them so kindly, but on the other hand…

A running out of one ANBU who seemed to not be able to stop his retching reflexes anymore made them all politely decline with a dead wish upon their heads. But at least they would die with a honor.

Minato chuckled, not able to help. Yes, the fear of elders was well installed in them.

'Actually I came here exactly to see Kazekage-sama… well… his corpse will do.' He waited with a pointed look until the shinobi around them found more important things to do than eavesdropping, and then carefully added under his breath. 'The fever is because of the amount of poison. I actually came here to turn the main seal off until the new ones heal. It's been forty eight hours, so they already have had plenty of time to blend with the activated one. The fever will go down and he will heal faster once the things is off.'

The elder eyed him from the cake with more vigilance than it was already needed. But she lived through more than that and she knew already she couldn't trust circumstances, even under such weather.

'All right.' she muttered, wiping off her mouth from white cheese 'But I need an inspecting person to be with you there, the observing jutsu in those rooms don't seem to work too well, so at least one person had to be in case of sudden change. Yura!'

An ANBU sprung from his position on which he selected small green moulds.

'You will go with Hokage-sama and give me a report later.'

The ANBU nodded and stood near Minato, ready to trail him to the room. Minato stared at the man with a smile, but then shook his head.

'Sneaky, Chiyo-sama, but no can do. As much as I trust you, how to activate the seal or not is only for Konoha to know.'

The elder woman grunted.

'Then what, you expect me to let you in without guards to leave my sick grandson's life only under care of someone like you in case anything's happened?'

The silence befell in the room.

'I don't see why not.' Baki slowly came out from the shadow. Chiyo tossed him an annoyed glance. He didn't seem to notice that. 'This is Hokage-sama we are speaking about. If anything would happen he would be the fastest to alarm us all… and if not, then I doubt anyone would help if his knowledge wouldn't.'

'You seem to think that such a youngster has a knowledge of medic nin of my sort, brat.' said Chiyo in scanty tone. Baki shrugged.

'I wouldn't dare to, Chiyo-sama.' he said, snapping his fingers at Yura. ANBU immediately got back to his position of sorting mushrooms 'But if anything would happen you would be just right there, right? Besides I doubt our jutsu would fail so many times. And if that would happen again… then we will have to wonder what's behind it.'

'You haven't figured it out yet?'

'Sadly, no. I'm just as crestfallen as you are, Chiyo-baa-sama, believe me. But we're still researching. Hokage-sama, please, I'll lead the way.'

Minato didn't, he just stared at the pair. Oh, he was sick and tired of the persecution.

'You know… all of you are acting so weird as of late. Since when am I primes suspect to attempted murder of fellow kages...? Is something going on with Daichi that I should know of?' His frown depended. '…It's his heart attack? If he had something important, you shouldn't have let him go through all of this-'

Baki tossed him a nervous glance, then cleared his throat, standing in the uptight position and facing the wall.

'There's no obstacles of such sorts as long as I heard of, there's no one trying to take Kazekage—sama's life-'

'…so yeah, maybe that's the attack of heart of my stupid grandson.' said Chiyo, then took another part of cheesecake and tasting it with a smile '…it's not like if anything can be undone now, Hokage-sama, and you know it very well. So I'd advise you wouldn't stay in touch with him much, who knows what might trigger the seizure.'

'If knowing he's blood related to someone as Chiyo-sama doesn't trigger it, I don't see why my presence will.' he said, his expression still unhappy. Turning around without waiting for the jounin, he walked to the Kazekage's room. 'I need a few minutes.' he told the man once he caught up with his, his voice even lower than before. 'I don't know how long it'll take to get him coherent. How has he been?'

'To be blunt – not very well.' said Baki with also hushed up tone as he eyed the bed. The man lied on it, unmoving 'The fever got actually pretty high, making him have some pretty strange nightmares or hallucinations, we're not sure – but that made him sleepwalking and wanting to act up on it. And that hasn't been pretty, if it wasn't for me holding him up in the room, he'd probably be running somewhere on the Konoha hills if he wouldn't just faint dead somewhere on the way. Calming jutsu had worked and fever has slowed down, I don't know how much – but at least he doesn't walk around. But at such state Kazekage-sama is not really responsive, so I wouldn't expect much.'

Minato massaged his eyes.

'Great, fantastic…' he sighed. 'Well, here's for hoping this will work… Thank you for the help, Baki-san. I appreciate it.' One the man had disappeared from sight, the blond closed the door and waited for the telltale fluctuations of chakra to mark that the observational videos would casually start having issues. Then he approached the bed.

'Hey, stupid.' he said, sitting on the edge of bed and stroking one of the cutely small eyebrows with his thumb. '…Dai. Wake up.'

The red-haired man stirred, then he slowly, very slowly opened his eyes, looking around. Gods, he felt so hot, like in this warm soup again… it was good he was in this darkened room or he'd probably go blind from the lights. He didn't really want to think about anything, even the fact that someone started talking in his room when there was usually no one there. He turned his head until he spotted the blond. Oh, Minato. Not this again. In the same slow move he turned his head in the starting position and closed his eyes. Maybe if he wouldn't pay attention to it, it would finally go away. It worked before. Why not now?

Minato rolled his eyes and slapped him. It was light, girly and wouldn't have hurt a toddler, but a slap, nonetheless. What was with redheads and testing his patience?

'Daichi, I'm not here for socializing, I need you coherent one minutes so we can discuss important stuff and then you can go back to riding stripped sandworms or whatever Suna-nins do when they get high.'

Daichi tensed at the touch as he usually was not touched there and turned his head back to Minato, this time with a light frown and more focused stare. So it was not a dream after all. Good. Because he was getting pretty tired of all that was happening to him lately. To the point of annoyance.

'…I'm sick of your poisoning.' he muttered, looking at him with half of a smile 'But it's good to see you're still alive.'

'Oh, a Sunanin complaining about poisons.' the blond said, moving away enough to be able to undo the fastenings of the redhead's new pajamas and taking it off, before turning him around. 'I do believe the world is gonna end… and I'm gonna spend it up with an old, grumpy redhead in a room that hasn't been aired in days.' This time he bit at his thumb and drew a line from the warning sign to the activation one lower on Daichi's back, then executed the hand seals. The ones on both arms flashed purple for a moment, then reverted to inactivity, along with the main one. 'The horror.'

With a smile, he pressed his hand to the redhead's back and started feeding chakra to the main seal, watching as this time the faint blue lines moved also down the older man's arms. Good… The seals had full path.

Daichi stopped himself from commenting as he saw what the blond was doing, simply because of indecisiveness of it all – that seemed to be almost something you didn't do to kage in sick, just pulling him off the clothes and turning him like a piece of pancake on a frying pan – but then, it was exactly what you did in situation like that. He started chuckling only to make a low hiss at the feeling of pulling at his muscles and bones, that reverted to chilling stinging with him having a drastically lowering temperature. He felt better, but also lightheaded for such a sudden change. So he didn't dare to make any movements yet. Even if he did want to make them. Even for a moment. He started chuckling again.

'You're the most horrible youngster I have ever known.' he murmured, watching him from the corner of the eye 'Some people would call it a honor. Or even a pleasure of highest kind to spend a minute with me. And you complain.'

'Those people obviously have never had the pleasure to count with your extended presence.' Minato said, leaning down to brush his lips on the nape of the other's neck, over the first tattoo. 'On a more serious matter, we need to discuss things, and unfortunately, you are in no situation for it.' The sad truth was that. Daichi was obviously weakened by the fever and exhausted and in no position to negotiate or make good points. '…that will have to wait until you feel better and come home with Gaara-sama.'

'Those people-' The other man closed his mouth shut in a quiet gasp as he felt the long forgotten sensation on the base of his neck. He closed his eyes. If he dreamed, he wanted to remember that. No. Wait. If he wanted to remember that then he had to have his eyes opened. But before he could decide, the sensation was already gone. Not yet… He moved his hand on the sheets until it grasped the material of Minato's pants and curled his fingers around it, just to make sure he would be there when he would be done exercising.

'I hate you.' he muttered, slowly getting his other hand from the spot it was laying and propping himself up on it, to turn more of his body toward the blond. It didn't seem to be that hard once he didn't have his fever, but then, it didn't feel very pleasant as his body was still a little jiggly after the aftershock 'I really, really do. Are you planning on coming and going just like that for all the time being? Don't make me force you to stay, Minato.'

'I'd love to be forced to stay, Dai, I really, really would.' the blond said with a leer, flipping the man from his position and pulling him to a sitting one so he could hug him to his chest and ran the pads of his fingers down his back lightly. 'Unfortunately, everyone and their -in your case, literally- grandmothers are waiting for you to push me down and rape me or for me to change alliances, so I can't come often. You know that.' He leaned slightly and gave him another kiss on his neck, this time on the side. 'I'm sorry.'

Daichi froze in the position, unsure of what to do. Suddenly he was having from 'no Minato' to 'handful of Minato', or rather, as one would call it – a 'whole loads of Minato at once'. So he just sat unmoving and stared at him like a dumbstruck. Because literally, he was a little… dumbstruck. But it was a nice kind of striking. Very nice. He could now smell Minato and recognize his body heat… It was something he missed for so long.

For a moment he wanted to lean into the hug, but as he remembered how the other one was not really happy about him being clingy, he decided to just let his hand lay in one arm, not protesting against the kiss on his neck as he turned to the side, kissing the arm through material. It was a cheesy gesture and not really healthy as you never knew what one clothes touched before coming in, but he didn't really care. He just wanted to appreciate him a bit, even if Minato just didn't want him to do that. At least not yet, as he seemed to be inclining.

'I'm sorry about my nosy family.' he muttered, letting his head fall on the place where his lips touched ' I know they can really be a bore. But on the desert… desert…'

He stopped. Desert was far away. And even if there was peace on the desert, it was not peace of Minato's kind. And even if, the sand had ears. No secrets stayed safe on the desert. But also not here. Was there any normal place to be alone as a kage? It seemed that his privacy just vanished long time ago. Now that he thought about it, he was not in privacy with anyone or even by himself for so long… He looked at Minato and added one quick peck on the right side of the jaw. Minato just seemed to be kissable, so kissable. But his resistance needed to keep him at a bay. He sighed.

'Maybe I just should sentence her for prison or something…' he murmured, against the clothed neck 'Or send her on a long mission to the end of the world…'

'You… you never learn, do you.' The water in Daichi's hand was lukewarm and a little muzzy for standing still for too long, but he didn't mind. It felt so familiar and so ironic at this point – he remembered how he cherished the gesture of tossing him a gulp of water by innocent Minato back in the days and how he cheered for bonds of brothership then.

Brothership, right. Right now, he could just play in incest of totally wrong kind. Especially with that hear beating against his own chest. He tasted the water. Wonderful. Minato never learned to not give it away to everyone. But he was more than happy to be spoiled like that. He didn't see why not to spill him a bit too.

'Not only you never got it to not waste water left and right but now you show me that you nobody taught you to not offer a drink to an important guest without drinking with them, Mi-na-to-kun…' he whispered, looking at the faded crystal of the glass while laying his head back again on the shoulder, to talk to neck 'Do you want to poison me?'

He chuckled at his own pun in the wordings, seeing how the tattoo on his hand shined in delightful violet, and tasted the water yet again. Oh, he never got tired of that taste. It was just fresh and vivid, a clear energy of existence. He liked to drink it under the burning sun and on cold evenings. It always had different taste. And always so, so good that he would never exchange for anything else – gods could have their ambrosia, but nothing could be measured by the taste of liquid oxygen and hydrogen after a workout.

But then, nothing made the taste better than the smell and warmth of Minato. It was almost like if the water in his mouth has gained a new smell. He chuckled. Oh, Minato… let you be treated well for that you were so careless. He slowly leaned back, looking into the blue eyes from under his half closed eyelids. Minato was such a twisted angel. He heard of one once. He was beautiful like a morning star…

'Drink with me.' he murmured in low, warm whisper, leaning on the blond with his whole weight until he made him fall on his back 'This is the savoir vivre. I insist.' H

e heard how the wind blew across the cold, snowed land, making it covered in frost and frozen water. He heard the shuffling of feet from behind a wall and talking of people just a few meters away. He heard them and he knew it was no desert and the so called 'privacy' was just miserable substitute for the real thing he could create in mirages under the merciless sun. He also knew that rarely anyone appreciated the gesture as it was usually claimed as odious and primal, transferring diseases and so on, but what did people know after all? Nobody in Suna ever repeated such things. Everybody in Suna knew how caring and discreet it was. Because everyone knew the value of spoonful of water. You could buy diamonds with it.

'Drink with me.' he whispered, looking at the blond from above and took a sip of water, leaving it on the floor, just a little out of reach. Then he leaned down and covered the pale mouth with his, closing his eyes and waiting for the response. Even if Minato wouldn't drink it and even if he would just push him away, he already did kiss him with wetted mouth. The so called 'brilliant kiss' gave off by Kazekage himself was a gift to not deny, even if it was not warm and the value of water was not even in the lowest percents as good as it would be under the flaring sun. But it was okay. He loved Minato either way. His lovely, angelic Minato. _The wealth of my land for you._

Minato stared at the man in his arms in curiosity, waiting to see what would come next with a calm, little smile on his face. Daichi only ever called him like that when he was in especially daring moods. It would be interesting to see how far he would go now that he didn't have a reason to hold back.

'Do you want to poison me?'

'I thought we were past that point in our relationship…?' He asked innocently, smiling back when the man. It was nice to see him smile and laugh. Apparently the Hyuuga heiress was right, small things did make a difference. He hadn't seen much of a happy Daichi as of late. It was especially nice after remembering the way he had made him cry one of the last times he had been in this room. 'Drink with me.' Suddenly the redhead got a lot heavier and he let him push him back on the bed, momentarily letting his min wonder about the fact guest houses has the most ridiculously comfortable mattresses in the world 'This is the savoir vivre. I insist.'

And God help him if he tried to do something against the Kazekage's wishes. That's the only reason he was laying down in bed with the man nearly on top of him after all.

'Drink with me.' he rose his hand to stroke the warm skin of the redhead's back and did.

Perfect. It felt almost too good when the blond swallowed, almost too unreal and petty. He breathed through his nose, wishing he could continue the pleasure of such sorts, but their time was too limited to play. Without moving away he pressed deeper, tasting the insides of mouth and kissing the lips fiercely. Then he moved his head, backing away reluctantly. Minato had beautiful cyan eyes when he looked up at him from such position…

A little déjà vu. Successful déjà vu this time. He smiled a little and kissed the lips again, just to be sure and laid down, hugging himself to the body. The caress of his back was a little primal and childish, treating him like an animal, but he didn't mind. Minato could do whatever he wanted, even break his hand right now. He allowed him that, because he wanted to trust the moment.

'You're such a beautiful creature, you know that…' he murmured against the ear, laying his head on the sheet just beside the blond's head 'A Caesar's nightingale…'

And if Minato was the infamous nightingale, he was the Caesar and would never, ever wanted to let the bird fly free once he caught it. He was that selfish.

'So beautiful…' Handsome. Perfect. Angelic. Any more perfection and he would start praying to him. Some said he was not as flawless as he saw him, but he was a sick, devoted man. He didn't see any even if it jabbed him in the eye Not inside the moment he trusted.

Minato made a small sound of encouragement as Daichi suddenly changed from feeding him water to kissing him aggressively, and stared up at him with a slight smile when he was done. He liked kissing. It was one of the many intimate things he missed doing with Kushina and since a few days with the saffron-haired man. Not because they were the same at all (Kushina had been more teasing, more playful, less set on demanding recognition –because she had won?- His wife had needed anyone's recognition but her own) or because he couldn't have taken a lover to satisfy those basic needs. Minato simply didn't have them.

As a Hokage, and living in a village brimming with ninja, it would have been impossible to keep such a secret, especially when he was such a catch for any female. If that was found, he might be forced to married, and just as forced to produce heir, And if he had other children (new kids who hadn't been, let's say, tainted) Naruto would lose the only security he had, and that was his name. Tailed beats sealed within or not, he was the only son of Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage. Demonic possession as not transferable from father to son, but genetics were. As long as the council had an interest on keeping the Namikaze gene pool, Naruto would be safe.

But even if he ignored the possible repercussions of such an affair, Minato simply didn't want or need just another person to warm his bed. What made kissing Daichi desirable, what had made Kushina so irresistible was how they could make him feel, about them, about himself, about everything that surrounded him. Lying underneath Suna's Kazekage, hearing him lavish poetry and compliments on him, Minato was immensely happy.

Because who else would get to know that Daichi had this ungodly sensitive side? That he could sing better than anyone would have expected of a man that barked and hissed more than spoke? How many got to see him sick and weakened and in pain, who would get to know the man needed physical contact and needed words and gestures to relax at this extent (and he had managed it, even if he hadn't really understood the reasons, he had done it and his beloved friend was happy, and so he was). Him, only him. These were things that he would have never shown Karura because she was a woman, and to Daichi almost all women were inferior (except with Kushina, his rival, his sister, the woman who was everything he couldn't afford to be, how bitter for him!)

They wanted him and he wanted them and they had made him want to be there, if only to know they could be his. He smiled, and leaned slightly to the side, pressing another kiss to the Kazekage's lips. His hand found that spot that had made the man make that uncharacteristic noise that last time, that noise he wouldn't have ever imagined he could do, and started exploring the area again, wanting to make him repeat it.

Daichi tightened his back muscles, then loosened them up, completely falling into the kiss without brakes. Because, oh, how wonderful it felt. Such a molten, lazy clash of lips and teeth in the darkened room of foreign territory, just a wall away from putting them into eternal shame and gravy danger of their positions. But he didn't mind it now. It barely mattered – his world has shrank to the small bubble of their own room, bed, bodies. He could stay in it forever.

It was something he waited for so long. And now he couldn't get enough of it, not having mind to actually see there was anything wrong with it. It was all he needed now. Minato. Close. That was all.

'Mmmh…' he sighed into the kiss, opening his eyes a little and moving away only to get closer again, getting one of his hand to get a hold of Minato's face and pet it, feel the skin of cheeks and temples. So beautiful.

The hands on his back stroked him also, making him feel more than just warm, discovering the old scars and awakening the just soothed nerves. His skin felt fragile under the just turned off seals. But it also felt nice. He let out a quiet sound of pleasure into the blond's mouth just to break the kiss and snuggle himself closer to the cheek with a sigh. It felt nice – that caress he never thought he'd achieve from anyone beside his own wife. Minato seemed to know him better than he thought. 'Keep doing that and I'll build you a pyramid.' he muttered in a low, rumbling voice as he moved his legs, entwining them with blond's and locking them tightly in the place 'And quite a big one.'

The hand from the cheek slowly traveled down, to the neck, uncovering it's part from the material by a simple pull and held it naked as the saffron haired man looked at it, not knowing well that the game was starting to play too far, but not straining away from it as he leaned closer to puff the air from his mouth against the white skin. A very nice view. He tensed at particularly stimulating stroke, letting out a small whimper and he leaned down to taste the skin. Ah, perfect. So perfect it was too perfect. He wouldn't mind leaving a sign on it. Like a nice, pinky hickey. Just like that.

Daichi was again petting him like a little kid did a skittish animal, quite funny if one considered the way he reacted to the stroking he himself was doing. For a moment, he couldn't help wondering what would have happened if he had allowed the older shinobi to kiss him fifteen years ago. He honestly couldn't tell what would he have done then, even if he hadn't met with Kushina. Like what he had learned about Gaara's possession and how Karura's death could have more than likely been prevented, it was something he wouldn't tell Daichi, as it would only hurt the older man.

He let out a contented little chuckle, stopped to think about it for a moment, then started laughing.

'Is…that supposed to be a dirty joke?... I… I can't honestly tell.' and he would have kept laughing if the redhead hadn't chosen that moment to make that unbearably sexy sound again (there, he wouldn't forget that spot, or the amount of pressure needed) and bite softly into his skin, making him shiver and quickly sober up. Completely against his will, mind you.

'Dai…' he called softly, stopping the stroking to reach up and ruffle slightly the saffron strands of hair pressed against his cheek. The other man tensed up, looking at the door, then he loosened up, hugging himself to the body in platonic, sexually void manner. Even if he knew what was it all about, he was still reluctant to let go. Minato, who denied him the hug let him now do anything he wanted and that was more of a reason to be unhappy than anyone else. For it being taken away, not being there in all. But his legs, even against his will, unlocked the hold and freed Minato.

'That…' he muttered, stroking the side of blond's face as he slowly unglued himself from him and rolled over, freeing Minato completely '…was more than a joke.' he smiled, leaning over the ear and changing his tone of a voice into the most sultry one.

'It was a promise.' and he pushed Minato off the bed in trained move. 'Please, stand back, Hokage-sama, you're breaking my personal bubble.' he said out loud in official tone 'I feel harassed for the state I'm in.'

'Goodness.' the blond said from his spot in the floor. 'If that's you feeling harassed…' With a small jump he was up again, dusting his clothing and ruffling his hair back into the usual mess that it was, then pressed the back of his hand to his forehead.

'I do believe Jiraiya-sensei has good reasons to fear for my virtue.' he smiled at his reflection. 'I'm such a sweet, innocent little lamb…' With a final adjustment to his turtleneck he turned again to the older man, crossing his arms in front of his chest and just staring appreciatively at the span of naked skin. 'Can I trust you will rest from now on, Kazekage-sama?'

Daichi observed the blond from his spot also, appreciating the way he moved and quietly wishing he didn't have to push him out of bed. But he knew better than that – they already took more than it was given for a normal check up. But that Jiraiya was in for it full and Minato knew it was something new. He smiled, leaning on pillows, accidentally – but without regrets – uncovering more of his skin as he let himself raise his hand and bit lightly on the thumb, catching the nail between his teeth. Then he let go of it and play around his mouth lightly while the smile still stayed on his lips.

'Sensei had a little lamb, his fur white as snow…' he sing sang-ed in a husky voice, watching the figure of the blond '…but if we play quiet, little lamb, he will never have to know…' And it was almost funny how those horrific lyrics suited the situation.

'I will rest, of course.' he muttered, biting on the thumb again with flash of teeth through a smile 'But once I will be rested, I will come for your virtues, be sure to warn your sensei about them being in grave danger.'

Minato felt horribly, perversely tempted to actually do that for a second. But only for one. He could never get enough of other people's reactions, but that one might actually send his sensei into a killing spree. Or maybe give him a heart attack.

'I think I better leave before the dirty-old-man-cooties catches up with me.' he said, smiling at the older man and bowing lightly. 'I'm going to o see Gaara-sama now. Baby and the Hyuugas made cookies for him.'

'Just wait till you get my age, you will regret for not grabbing such an amazing opportunity.' Funny, how he said that, being himself, knowing himself, doing what he did for past fifteen years. But still, life was irony, completely one of a kind. Especially now – two men in love in one room couldn't act on the feelings because of the people who couldn't even spot them, being outside the room. 'You, youngsters never appreciate what you have. And by the way, Gaara doesn't eat sweets unless one condition is fulfilled.'

'Is it to have metal on it? Because the first batter died when the kids dropped a handful of pennies on it.' And he still didn't have the remotest idea of why. Luckily he had convinced the kids to settle for making normal cookies and they had changed the normal sweet bits of chocolate for the darker ones he had gotten at request. 'No, from what I tasted, it's just bitter chocolate and almost no sugar. You would like them, want me to sneak you one?'

Daichi looked at the blond with a little pity, then turned his head to look at the ceiling.

'I meant blood, Minato-kun. ' he said with a light smile and just as light frown 'B-l-o-o-d, like in our veins. Nothing tastes sweet for that devil, he only finds sweets enjoyable if they have taste of salt and copper. And you know me, I don't eat candies.' The light wavered a bit at the wind that got inside through the not very tightly shut windows. Daichi turned his head back to Minato again. 'But if he won't want to eat it, I can clean the mess on the plate he would leave.'

'You mean, in the hypothetical case your grandmother doesn't get to them first?' Minato asked, choosing not to comment on the matter one way or another. 'I made her cheesecake, but I don't know how long will that hold her off. How does Suna manage with her…?'

'Suna doesn't manage with her. She is an outsider hermit who decided to lead such life on her own.' Daichi smiled at the comment about cakes. Yes, she was a vacuum cleaner. And to tell the truth, he was not sure where she stuffed all those sweets. But it was probably old age. And the fact that in Suna nobody baked her cookies. 'She is not Suna's matter anymore. She can come back but she doesn't want to. I honestly don't know what she ate for her past twenty years.'

'If it weren't for the hermit part, I'd say the tears of newborn babies.' Minato looked in the door's direction. 'Anyway, I should be going. Mushrooms and cake can only keep her entertained for so long, and your fever should go down now. Let me know when you can come to my house, and bring Gaara-sama with you. I'll go talk to him now.'

Odd though… the last time he had been there the kid had eaten some of the sweets he had brought. Less than his siblings, but he had assumed it was only because he had been so busy talking to him. 'Take care of yourself, Kazekage-sama.'

'What, no goodbye kiss?' taunted the red-haired man, smiling at him from the quilt cockily, then covering himself with just a little movement of disappointment 'Then go to hell and say hello to satan.' And knowing where Minato was going, he was not very far away from the truth. Gaara didn't seem to grasp on his moods yet, but the sand has been lately a little too edgy, more sizzling and nervous. So if anything – the devil was reawakening from ignorance and besides, Minato acted like a true ninja when it came to their relationship. His reason was very happy, but it could be happy as well in trash bin for him. The whole rest of him was not taking the lack of touching too much. 'We'll see you soon.'

Daichi didn't speak or answer as the door opened, showing the little wave toward him with stoic face. And when they closed, he let his head fall on the pillow and breathe the air. It still had this faint pretty smell of other's presence. As always.

Baki closed the door.

'I assume I can get back to doing my duties now.' he said, looking at the blond from under his curtained view. He didn't really mind as it was a little less straining job than what was Chiyo trying to do with them, but then it was far more dangerous and that was also tiring. He didn't want to think about how long it would take. 'Because I'd rather get to see if any of my ANBU is not needing help at the moment.'

'Depends on if Chiyo-sama wants to have security set up for me to pass by and say hello to Gaara-sama.' The blond said with a little smile.

Baki returned the smile.

'You know the answer to that question very well, Hokage-sama.' because Chiyo all cared for was the cakes and mushrooms now and if the main source was to go dry he wouldn't want to be in the place of the cause and face her wrath. 'I shall lead the way.'


	25. Chapter Twenty Five: Monmonmonster

The sand rustled and reshaped, ready to jump from every corner at the newcomer. Gaara rose his eyes, staring at the door with eyes that brought nothing but apathy. But seeing the blonde, a spark of curiosity stayed in them. 'Hello.' He said simply as the sand rustled again, loosening up and rolling onto the floor but very interested in the newcomer.

'Mommy says you can get in.' The sand smiled. Minato stared at the smile, refrained the urge to do a rude gesture the stupid animal probably wouldn't understand and went in, crouching in front of the kid and very, very carefully reaching with a hand to pat his head.

'How are you, Gaara-sama?'

'Bored.' green eyes glinted in the darkness as he moved his head to the side, letting the sand hit the switch, but with no effort. After so many sudden attack at any newcomer every light bubble was popped long time ago. The sand swirled, surrounding them in a tight circle and getting up to look at the blonde from highs. 'Nobody ever comes there, and Naruto hasn't written for so long… when will 'after' come?'

'Well, I came to see you just for that.' Minato said with and easy smile, wondering why it seemed like every time he came here, Gaara was alone in the middle of the room doing nothing besides very likely holding private conversation with 'mother'. And then Daichi got mad at him when the kid listened more to the raccoon than him. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the a small orange envelope and the bag of cookies. 'Naruto's officially done being grounded. As soon as your dad feels better, we would like for you to come home for a visit.'

Gaara blinked, looking at the blond. Then, very small and very timid smile graced his features. He hadn't expected it to come so quickly. More, he hadn't expected it happen at all. It all seemed to be yet another one of those _never happened_ promises of his father. He reached out for the letter and the cookies, the sand following after his movements and getting inside the pack first. After a moment all baking was covered in smiling sand, but Gaara didn't mind. He rarely got anything from anyone and if he did – it was always covered in sand. On the desert barely anything could be cleaned out from earth's elements.

He bit on first one. Bitter. But dull. He didn't like such things much. He looked at Minato and eyed him suspiciously. Could it be that he forgot about something? Maybe he was hiding it, reluctant to let go of it? He made the sand circle the blond and look at him from every direction, but no raw meat could be spotted, neither in vision as well as in smelling. Disappointed, Gaara slowly took out the cookie out from his mouth and hid inside the bag. It was not good enough to eat it. But at least he could play with it. Mother would probably play with crumbs happily. Or maybe even get him some blood to make the taste more bearable.

'Thank you.' he said, opening the letter with his hands. It was closed well, so he had little problems there, but there was no glue that sand wouldn't get out with. After a few seconds, the letter was spread out fully in his hands.

'Sorry about that, the kids did what they could.' Minato said with an apologetic smile. 'But it was their first attempt. If you don't like them, you can give them to Chiyo-sama.'

_Hey Gaara! Guess what, daddy said that it's okay for you to come over now (as soon as your dad gets over his flu, but stay away from him, if you catch it dad won't let you come over and he's provably cranky anyway so it's dangerous!). Daddy also said your dad will come over too and that's we have to wait v(-A-)v _

_But it doesn't matter because my daddy will keep him distracted and he promised we can order Ichiraku's and eat here because it's too cold outside but we can play for a while either way. Oh, we tried making cookies, but it's ok if you don't like them. We tried making it taste like copper but dad made us throw the batter when we put pennies on it and then we didn't have enough chocolate chips to try again so we did what Hinata told us and they came out more or less right, but we couldn't get them to taste like that, so we just made them really bitter. _

_Anyway (some scratches) You know, for a genius, Neji is really bad at cooking. Hinata had to give him half of hers because his looked normal but tasted like crap. I guess geniuses aren't good for everything, because my daddy can never tell which side of my shirts goes front unless they are marked. Anyway, come home soon, I want to show you my things and play with you! N.N._

Gaara blinked, rereading it once again, then he rose his head, looking at Minato.

'Front is front and back is back.' he said, informing the man about sides of the shirt as it seemed everyone, even Naruto, forgot the basics of letting people learn the right things. Then he reached out his hand, catching the one of the blond's fingers, making the sand rustle with happiness. Warm ramen and playing with Naruto sounded like fun and he also wanted to meet those two strange Hyuuga kids Naruto talked so much about. And as far as he remembered, his father was not sick at all, only had to lie in bed a lot He knew that because he could always smell the infection off him. Infected people always smelled like if they were rotting.

So they could go now. He looked up at the blond, waiting for him to lead the way.

'Front of what, Gaara-sama?' the Hokage asked, surprised the kid had taken his hand and disliking the sand's reaction, but not pulling away. 'Do you want me to wait for you to write a reply?'

'Front of front.' Gaara said simply, then looked down at the letter. What reply? Naruto simply said they could come, wasn't that right? He looked back at Minato again. 'I want you to take me with you.' he said, showing up the letter 'Naruto said I could come when father stops being sick. Father was never sick to begin with, so the time is now.'

'Oh, that…' he looked at the door for some help but Baki had either gone away or was hiding somewhere (Cowards! All of them!) and not there when he needed him. So he crouched to Gaara's height again. 'No, he meant you can come when your father feels well enough to come with you. He had a high fever, but he should get better very fast now.'

Gaara blinked again, then tilted his head to the side.

'I know he can walk, he walks all the time, I hear him.' he muttered, still not letting go of the blond's finger. The sand wavered, getting even closer 'He doesn't have to feel well to come, he just needs to not have flu. He doesn't have flu.'

Minato stared at the little redhead, a part of both angry and unsurprised on the fact Daichi had been up, and he had the feeling not only when he was delirious. Stupid redhead… Expression warming, he smiled to the redhead.

'Your father was my teammate, before we both became kages, did you know?'

Gaara frowned, then looked at the finger he held. That was getting surprisingly strange.

'Are you a ghost?' Father rarely spoke about anything of his past, and even if he did, he made only a few short sentences that were less informative than secret scrolls he got hold onto once. From what he heard, father's teammates died. And the blonde didn't seem to be dead.

'Not at all.' turning his hand slightly, Minato used his thumb to pet the hand the kid was using to hold onto his finger. 'Kazekage-sama, my wife and I were a team. Back then I wasn't married to her- I didn't marry her until your brother was born, actually. But your father was the first one to guess I would.'

The redhead tensed, making the sand freeze, then relaxed under the caress, making the sand also lazier with his emotions. It felt nice. Nobody had made him feel anything like that. Out of curiosity he stepped closer and get a hold of the thumb with the other hand to hold it up and look at it from under - but it seemed to be normal, just like his thumbs. He let go of it. It felt too nice to not let it continue.

'Father always knows the best.' he said just to nod to what was said, though mother whispered something else. But she always did. It was hard to listen to buzz that was the same from since he could remember. 'Was she pretty?'

'When I first met her she looked like a boy. Your father had been in a team with her for longer than I when I came back from Konoha to join the team… And at first I thought he was joking with me when he told me that she was a girl. She really didn't look or act like one.' Minato said with a small laugh, letting the kid explore his hands and remained calmed through the sudden spike of alarm from the sand. Through the few time she had been here and from what little Daichi told him, he had learnt unless the boy was having a fit, the sand only ever reacted to what it perceived as aggression… besides getting into his personal bubble. '...so no, she wasn't really pretty… But she became a real beauty.'

That got Gaara's attention fully. Not that he understood why was the blond saying that to him, but nobody really told him such stories and treated like a good listener. Maybe Yashamaru did, once or twice. But it was fair too little for his tastes. And he liked to listen.

'Why did she do that?' he asked, moving his other hand over the thumb, trying to imitate what was the blond doing, but not managing on it as it was hard to grab a thumb and let it do the massage and massage it himself. From two things, he liked being massaged more. Though he didn't understand the purpose of such action either.

'I guess some girls aren't really too pretty when they are too little, and get prettier when they grow up…?'

'Temari says mother was beautiful too, before father decided to change her.' Minato didn't know how to address such a question, and considering Baki seemed to have gotten comfortable with hiding away, he decided to ignore it altogether.

'That's right, Karura-san was extremely beautiful… Kushina and I were at the wedding.' he looked down at the boy's hands, wondering what he was trying to do, then reached out and petted his hair again. 'Your eyes are like hers. But your father didn't change her, Gaara-sama. She just died, like my wife.'

The said eyes widened, startled, making the sand freeze in grotesque pointed shape, then he relaxed, leaving the mass of loose stone in lazy state. The said eyes left the hand and started watching the hand from downside, then they blinked very leisurely, obviously pointing at the pleasure he felt when he closed them and waited with opening the eyelids. That caress also felt very good. He liked what was the blond was doing. When he opened his eyes again, he was looking straight at him.

'Did you kill her too?'

Minato started slightly, more about the fact this question came just a few days after Naruto had asked him something so similar…

'No… she died on her own. Because she didn't listen to me… And because of that she nearly caused Naruto to die.' he stared at the sand a moment, but it seemed it had caught on the fact he hadn't meant it as threat, so he resumed the petting. 'You see, Gaara-sama… Kushina did something she shouldn't have then. She was pregnant and she should have been resting, but we were at a war, and she decided to come back, and that's why she died. I know Kazekage-sama can walk, but that doesn't mean he should be doing it. It's not good for his health. And as his team-leader and as his friend, I don't want anything bad to happen to him.'

'Why did you let her come back?' The redhead moved his head to get better, full access of petting even if he was not sure when exactly would he get the one hundredth percent of what he wanted. He inched closer, catching the part of the material by other hand and leaned forward, feeling the foreign smell closer, but not falling into it. The sand rustled up quicker. 'I wouldn't let her come back. Can father die because of walking too?'

'I didn't, I was somewhere else… She told me she would go with the civilians, but she lied to me-' he looked down at the kid, who was inching closer to him slowly, with an odd expression on his face, looking confused. 'And no, don't worry about that. Your father is very strong, but he's also very stubborn. If I tell him to come now, I know he will do it, but it won't be good for his health, and then he really might catch a cold…Gaara-sama?'

'Muh?' The redhead was now leaning on the blond's arm, hugging himself to the side, being almost too entwined into the pleasure he felt to recognize what he did. It felt good to feel warm body, also when it was not dying away, he knew that already with Naruto. And the bigger blond could hold him like he always wanted too. That's why, when he moved his pupils around, registration what was happening, he didn't even move an inch, even if the sand crept another few millimeters closer. It felt good. 'Can we go now?'

A cold was not anything big either way.

'If we go now, Kazekage-sama might get sick, and I don't want that.' Minato answered patiently, watching the kid glued to his side 'Please wait a few more days.'

The redhead slowly rose his head from the side, playing with material. Why was the blond making such a big fuss over it? Nobody did that when father was having temperature or a cold. Only when there was some deeper failure nobody could notice everyone suddenly got concerned. But not for long too.

'You're strange for saying that.' he murmured, glancing at the hand that petted him 'If father will get sick he will also get healthy. I don't want to wait.'

'Neither does Naruto, but being patient is part of being a shinobi, Gaara-sama.' he patted the kid again on the head. 'If you want, we can sit together while you write a letter back to Naruto.'

The redhead watched him with suspicion for a moment, then he unglued himself from his side, going to the corner where he held the paper he brought from the house while he was bored and sand felt like traveling under the cover. He could write a letter, but he would like to meet the blond more.

'I am already a shinobi.' he spoke in calm voice, grabbing the sheet of paper and getting back to Minato 'Patience is something I mastered a few months ago.'

'You will make your village very proud then.' Minato said, ruffling the incredibly soft, red hair again and sitting himself next to the wall, resigned to spending as long as it took to produce that letter. At least he had convinced the kid to remain calmed and in place. Gaara stopped his doings, watching as the older man leaned on the wall and seeing how the sand circled around him, watching him with a toothy grin. Then he resumed writing.

'I don't care about my village.' he stated in calm voice, writing with clean, small letters 'They can all die and make me proud for killing them all.'

It was not really what he meant, the village was the main source of corpses to him when he wanted them. But mother said it so many times it sounded good to just say it out loud.

'You shouldn't think like that, Gaara-sama. Sunagakure was the village you were born in. And besides, if everyone dies, you would be alone.' he kept stroking the boy's hair, though now he wasn't really aware of what he was doing. '… being alone is a terrible thing.'

The features on the stoic boy's face changed suddenly, showing something that could only be described as haunted madness, making the sand crumble from his face, but it got covered as fast as it was shown. He resumed writing, trembling a little, like if someone has suddenly opened the window. The sand stopped and changed the rustling into completely other way, swirling quickly in spirals up and down.

'I hope they all die.' he whispered, drawing a smiling sun in the middle of the text 'It would change nothing.' Because still nobody would play with him if they were dead. Nobody would change their glare, if they were dead. But they won't be seeing or running from him. Nothing would change. They would just stop. Stop doing things that hurt him. All of them.

'I hope he dies. He is a stranger. I can make myself a better father.'

And, just like with a whip, the sand clone was produced, showing the mirror-like image of Daichi, who sat quietly near them, watching them with brownish texture of his eyes. 'I hope they die. I hope they will. I hope he does.' And yet, he still wrote smiling faces all over the paper sheet.

Minato froze in the middle of brushing his fingers through the blood-red hair, eyes widening. What the hell had been that? He knew there was sand over the redhead's face, and he knew the kid was capable of different expression but the thing cracked and underneath…

and…

Kill Daichi? It took him a moment to find his voice.

'…Gaara-sama? Do you want me to tell you a secret?'

The redhead moved his head to the side, observing him with slightly quivering eyes, not stopping the drawing and still trembling. The spirals of sand didn't cease, still swirling in the air with the same speed. But even as he didn't look at the paper, not one line was put outside the order. He waited.

'Your father is a very precious person to me, because he was the first friend I ever had. And if anything happened to him… ' he looked at the sand-Daichi, hating every perfect little detail that made him so much like the original, hating it for the mere reason it was there. 'That's not Daichi. It's a thing and it can't be Daichi. Ever. You can make it look like my wife, but it won't be her, either, and it won't be Naruto if you try to make it look like him, because it's a thing, and not a person. People are precious because they are unique, and once dead, there's no way to get them back.'

The graphite in the pencil broke. Gaara stared at it, not reacting to it, still pushing the object a little too hard to the surface of paper. He looked at the figure, that looked back, then he looked at Minato, the clone copying his moves. Green eyes seemed to stand still, but the face seemed to be too tensed up, like if the muscles were under a pressure of something heavy or making them work somewhere underneath the deeper surface.

'Does that mean that father is one of a kind and only one?'

'Yes. Every person is.'

The redhead slowly turned back, looking at the clone. Fake Daichi again – moved his sandy eyes to look at the kid.

'Good.' said Gaara in suddenly faint, calm voice. The spiraling sand came down to the floor with a swoosh and mingled into the lazy surface again. The graphite was in the pencil again, writing. 'Because I don't want him back.' And without a sign of warning, the clone suddenly fell forward on its face, lifeless, crumbling away quickly like a mound of dust it was, disintegrating into shapeless nothing. Along with the sand on Gaara's cheek that showed completely invisible until now, toothy grin that could be called anything but pretty. Or sane, for that matter.

'…I do.' Minato withdrew his hand and suddenly stared down at the kid, whatever warmth had been there was gone. 'I want him here.'

Gaara stopped, looking after the hand with surprised stare, his eyes and facial expression back to his normal, childish self. He looked at Minato, flinching under the cold stare. He was not expecting this. Not this man to look at him in such way. Was he also one of those who hated him now? Was he the one who didn't understand also? Nobody understood. Nobody ever understood his pain. He frowned with a painful creak on his face, stopping the writing and looking at the blond.

'You're adult, is that's why are you so greedy?' he said, turning his gaze to the paper, letting his face sadden even more 'You have Naruto and want my father who is supposed to be mine but isn't. Greedy.' And that was true, because maybe if he managed on getting rid of such unloving father, then maybe someone else would be able to fill the place and become a loving father in exchange. And now, the spot as still taken and he was alone. 'Why do you want me to hate you too? I don't want to hate everyone.'

Minato didn't answer for several seconds, merely resting against the wall and staring at the leftovers pieces of sand that had formed such a perfect image of his friend. He would almost want to watch it doing it again, just for the pleasure of seeing the fake one go down on pieces.

'I don't hate you, Gaara-sama.' his voice was almost too quiet, but there was security, and even at that age, he knew the kid would hear him. 'But Daichi is a very important person to me, and I need him to be here. How would you fill if Naruto died?

'I would fall asleep.' The answer was quick and natural, added almost with shrug of his shoulders. Naruto was already important part of his life and he would not feel good if he was to be gone. So he'd either let it all out or let mother take this part of him away so he wouldn't remember anything about Naruto, because remembering about his loss was too great to bear, he knew that already. He ended drawing yet another piece of cacti he decided to tell Naruto about ad looked at the blond again. 'You lie.' He said simply and got back to drawing.

'Naruto is my only son, Gaara-sama.' the blond said in the same calm tone of voice as before. 'If I hated you I would never let you see him.'

The hand of the redhead stopped in the middle of word as he stared at it. Then, his muscles loosened and the drawing tool had fell on the piece of paper and rolled of it, hitting the floor with soft 'thack'. Gaara rose from his seat and slowly moved around, looking at him with hurt gaze as he walked to the corner in the furthest part of the room.

'You lie.' he said in a steady, quiet voice as he passed him by and he sat down on the floor, staring at the invisible dot on it. He caught up now what was it all about. It was all just a scene, a mischievous plan and sweet lies. There was something underneath it. Something bigger… more painful… something disturbing…

…something was going on…

He sat, staring at the floor, feeling the lack of peace in his mother and feeling that somehow, anyhow it was not about him seeing Naruto at all as he would never see him again – now he knew that – but it was something about father. Father suddenly became important. Too important to touch also for other people. It didn't ever happen. Something was going on. Father was important alive… He turned his pupils at the blue ones, looking at him with slowly growing anguish and not erasable betrayal. This something – whatever was it – going on, was not good… not good at all…

_It's dangero__us, brat. Father is dangerous._

'No, mother. Father is not dangerous…'

_Not yet, but… but…_ The invisible body in his mind moved around in unrestful way. He kept staring at the blond.

'Nobody will hurt you, mother.' He spoke quietly, looking at him at the blond without hesitance 'And if they will, they will die.'

Minato looked back evenly, without any sort of ill intention to the boy. That's why he had always been a successful ninja, he never felt ill intent towards others. He had always had the uncanny ability to detach himself completely from the situation, and while Gaara's one saddened him, it wasn't enough to make him hate the boy.

'I'm not lying to you, Gaara-sama,' the blonde said, not making any move to get up or move away. 'If I were, I would be lying to Naruto too. And I have no reasons to lie to you or him. I'm Hokage. Not only would it be bad for my image if I lied to the son of my important friend, but I wouldn't even need to. I could just say you won't and that would be it.'

'A lie!' Gaara frowned, then curled in himself as booming voice of mother roared through his head, causing him to feel overshadowed and insecure. Something was wrong, very, very wrong in what was blond saying, because the shape in his mind suddenly got all hostile, growling at him and started whispering things. Things about blood, bones, meat, rivers of tears and lies, lies, lies…

He looked up at the blue eyes, holding his head in pain as his veins started bumping and causing him feel unease and stinging under the right eye. His speech was something he knew so well already. Because always, always when father wanted to inform him about something he used the same tone, the same look, the same words. But why was he surprised? He was a 'hokage', and that was no different than 'kazekage'.

Adults were always the same – treated him with cold shoulder and with cold stares, but this one was slightly different. Only ever so slightly, because he spoke incoherent sweetness' and made him trust him and now he was trying to control him the same way… that was awful, disgusting… Abominable!...

'You… you…!' he rasped, feeling how another jab of shaking stab him beneath the eye. Sweet lies, Naruto said something different… and he… him… he had been burned again, but it was good… no he knew, he knew there was not anyone to trust… only Naruto… Naruto was the only one he could trust… And that man… 'You monster!' he screamed, immediately sending massive amounts of sand into a great typhoon and showing them at him 'Get away from me! Get out, get out, get out! I will kill everyone until there will be nobody left! Only us! I hate your hate!'

Minato avoided it easily- as easily as an extremely fast human could avoid massive amounts of sentient sand in enclosed space. Not that it would remain so if the sand slammed against the walls that way, and one of the was definitely headed for outside… Part of him was thinking this, another was feeling oddly exited, exhilarated, even. Naruto wasn't like this, he wasn't like this at all, but oh, he could have been… And what could he have done, then? The rest was just analyzing the kid and his reactions in a way that would have made Kushina slap him, as if he were an interesting insect under a magnifying glass and he were running an inventory on its different parts.

It would be easier without the sand mask he kept on, but body language was enough for this. The ceiling was the safest spot at the moment, and that's where he retreated, staring upside down at the little kid, crouched low on his position.

'I don't hate you. But what about Naruto?' he asked calmly.

The redhead slowly rose his head, almost a mockery at how quickly was the sand dashing around the room, breaking everything that could be broken and climbing up the walls and watching the blond from the floor where one black eye has formed and watched his position. Green eyes shook like if Gaara was participating in some kind of strange vertigo or was having Parkinson's syndrome.

'You won't take that away from me.' he whispered stood up, reaching his hand up straight 'I didn't do anything to you, you don't have rights to do anything to me. Sabaku Kyuu!...' At those words the sand suddenly shot up, reaching for Minato and curling around everything that it caught in tight grip.

The redhead didn't move, holding him up in a tight cocoon, as his grimace deepened and loosened at every trash that ghost in his head made. The sand swirled chaotically, reflecting what was going inside his brain.

_Kill him! Kill the vermin! Do it brat, do it!_ shouted the shape, closing dangerously to him and circling him, booming with a howl at him and pointing at the blonde. The sand for a moment showed a whole face of Shukaku opening and closing his mouth in quick speed, the speed of ravishing speech, but without a sound. Then it vanished. Gaara gurgled, catching his head by his free hand and looking at the floor. _Kill him! You've got him! Kill him!_

He shook his head.

'But then… then Naruto will hate me, mother… he will hate me…' The sand for a moment showed the figure of a smiling blond and replenished, dissolving again. Gaara moved his mouth in a faint whisper, barely hearable. 'Naruto…'

_He already hates you, brat! He will teach the young one to hate you and to forget about you! And nothing will ever change! Kill him!_ He squeezed his hand a little more, making the grip tighten, but stopped. Another sting made him loose his straight position. _What are you waiting for?_

'This hurts, mother… it hurts…'

_Kill him!_

'He said he doesn't hate me…'

_He lied!_

'He seemed to be so nice…'

_Lies! All lies!_ The sand formed another figure of Gaara, looking at something behind Minato, holding up his head and mimicking the gestures of original one, but his face was full of remorse, something that couldn't be visible on the covered mask of the redhead. He moved his lips.

'I don't want Naruto to hate me…'

_He never liked you to begin with!_

'That's not true!'

_That's the only truth! You can trust only me, brat! Only me!_

'But mother…'

_Kill him!_

'Mother!...' The big head lashed at him, not touching him. The figure from sand covered, then looked up in fear, watching Minato like if he was the one causing him pain, not otherwise. 'Naruto is my friend!'

_You don't have friends!_

'I do! I do, he said so himself!'

_Nobody likes you!_

'That's not true!'

_Kill him!_

'Mother!' The sandy figure opened mouth in mute scream and dissolved as Gaara looked up, shaking and screamed, tossing the blond to the wall with loud bang and opening the door. The sand hissed, leaving him and circling around the lithe body in a big cloud, taking him up from the ground and steering him outside. Out there, already a group of ANBU's waited.

'Get out.' said Gaara in low, hurt tone and got up, standing on the sand and spun into a run, his every step being covered in flying sand so he didn't fall down from the heights. The cause of his pain and the hostility of mother wasn't the blond. This time, once he let go of the prey, the attention of her didn't scold him and urge for catching him again but turned to the other room. There was something very, very wrong and he had to see what was it. Just see. See. With one quick move he formed a big hand of sand, pushing two ANBUs who went through his path aside and banging on the door from where he felt the disturbing flow. The creaked, forming a hole near the ceiling, big enough to let him come through. The room of kazekage. The room of his father.

With one jump, he vanished behind them, closing his path with block of sand. He had to see. Nobody could interrupt him doing that.

Minato felt his whole skeleton rattle inside what for a moment felt more like jelly than skin, and instantly knew his arm and shoulder would get the worst part of the bruising he would undoubtedly end up with, and odd thought (I should have kissed him) Running through his mind as he got back to his feet (I should have kissed him, he wanted me to.) And distractedly helped one of the cloaked figures back up, looking around the slightly disastrous area and thinking how many repairs would it take to get it back as it should be.

'Baki-san?'

'Hokage-sama! Are you all right?' The jounin ran up to him right away, as the remaining ANBU attacked the door and shouted as they were pushed aside and pierced with thorns of sand out of sudden. 'What's happened?'

Minato avoided giving the man an ironical look (so much for accompanying) and just smiled at him amiably.

'I'll tell you later, I would like to see the security cameras now, please.' he didn't even bother with telling the ANBU to leave the sand alone, or that Daichi could handle this himself, as they probably wouldn't have understood it. He had turned the seals off, and even if he hadn't, Daichi's blood was the same type as Gaara's and the poison had been in his body for enough time for it to accommodate to him. He didn't know why the demon had waited so long to take notice of this (or rather, he did know now, though he doubted Daichi would understand it, either) but none of that mattered at this instant, because he needed to know what the child would ask. Because right now that was all that mattered. Without him to activate them, the seals were nothing more than ink in a body.

Baki looked at him, then at the door, indecisive at the futile attempts of ANBU trying to get inside the room, but then he spun into a run, leading to the controlling room that was set up there at the beginning. It was a Hokage. He probably knew what he was doing. Even If it was their monster and their leader to save. But just to clear his mind, he ordered the remaining group to go and try to get inside from the side of the window.

Inside of the control room, a big, faint screen made of lightening and glowing scroll flowed through the air, screening everything on blue. But there was no one inside. The screen showed only a completely crushed bed and bits of sand everywhere. With one touch of screen, the jounin moved it left and right, but still no one could be spotted, even if the sand squiggled like if it was made of worms, making an impossibly loud murmur. There were no people around. Baki looked helplessly at the Hokage, but it seemed it was all he could do.

'Have some faith in your Kazekage, Baki-san.' Minato said with a small smile. 'If anything had happened, the land would have calmed down or attacked the ANBU more thoroughly.' Or there would be blood somewhere on the screen. Besides, killing a human was always messy. There wasn't blood anywhere, and Minato knew better than most just how much of it an adult's body had.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Daichi had a peaceful rest. Very peaceful. So peaceful it turned him into deep slumber, so he didn't hear what he could normally hear as a ninja. Even if something kept on bothering him through there. The image of slowly stripping Minato was too distracting to wake from the theatre he was playing in. It only got to the pants when there was a sudden loud slam, that could be heard from the other side of him. He only managed to open his eyes, licking his lips from the saliva, when suddenly something blew out the door and hit the wall just above his head. He looked at it closer. It looked like a part of the door. He turned around. Gaara.

With a strangely quizzical look on his face. Something that didn't suit him and didn't portend anything good. He got up as quick as he could.

'What are you doing here?' he asked, immediately thinking about what could have happened and finding at least three scenarios which one of them scared him, second one made him feel dread and the third one… he didn't even want to think about third one. 'I forbade you coming out of your room!'

Gaara didn't answer, suddenly slumping down, and looking at him from the position where his one shoulder was higher than second and the short bangs covered his face like a curtain. The green eyes that looked at him were not full of fear, like usual. They held question and something too close to dread.

'Father.' spoke the redhead, looking at him from the red bangs, unmoving 'What are you doing?' Daichi budged, not knowing what to do. He didn't expect to be questioned by his own son on that matter. He didn't even think he would have to explain anything to him at all. And, going along with his plan, he didn't intend to. He moved forward.

'Gaara, get back to your roo-' he stopped as suddenly a grand wall of the sand showed in front of him, smiling at him hideously. He made a step backward. The sand dissolved, circling him, hissing and unrestful. He tsked.

'Father.' was repeated in the same ghastly tone and position 'What are you doing?'

He took a step backward, starting to hold his hands up in a hand seal.

'I'm resting.' he answered in a cold tone 'I have a flu and I need to heal up from-'

'LIE!' The sand shot at him so suddenly he barely managed to move aside, watching in horror as it crushed the bed to bits. Gaara turned to him, catching his head, sand falling through his fingers on the floor. 'You are not sick… you lie… you liar… you all are liars… father… father…'

He looked at him, quickly ending hand seals and stepping aside as the sand opened the black eye at him, making it close like if it was frowning at him.

'I'm not doing anything.' he said and jumped on the wall, again, just in the nick of time as the sand banged just above his head, hitting the wall with feral force 'Calm down!' Gaara turned his head toward him, glaring at him and showing his fangs like a wild animal. Almost like if he was ready to gush at him.

'Mother says OTHERWISE!' he howled, springing up both of his hands, showing his face full of pain and fury as the hands pointed at him. He yelped, running on the wall around and aiming and turning toward the sand in the last second. After a moment, the seal jerked his hands and made the sand froze in the air. Some bits a few centimeters from his face.

That was bad. Gaara never showed so much aggression toward him. That could mean only one thing. The monster had finally recognized that something was going on. Hence the questioning. He ran outside of the sand, feeling that the redhead still watched him and moved with him, pointing his palms at him like if nothing has happened. Once the seal broke, the sand moved again, rushing at him and surrounding him in circle so tight, he could not move around. He looked at the kid.

'What the hell are you doing?' he asked calmly, even as he felt unease at the fact that the sand started coming up, not touching him but watching him with eyes, looking at his naked skin. 'I told you to calm down. Listen to me, brat!'

'Mother says you're dangerous.' said Gaara, not letting go of the sand as it rose enough to cover up him to the tilt of the neck. Then it stopped. Daichi didn't react to that. He moved forward, expecting the sand to move aside, as it usually did, only this time it didn't. He looked down, seeing how the sand caught his foot, freezing him on the spot and sizzling, making him feel like if he was covered in ants. Gaara observed him with quizzical look. Now that was bad.

'Mother says you are going to hurt her. Why do you smell so strange?'

'I don't have to tell you anything.' he said, forming another hand seals, feeling how the tension in the room started to rise as the sand started to move quicker. The mouth on the floor lost the smile. And suddenly, the look on Gaara's face started to change. From the dread it suddenly became filled with fear as the face of Shukaku started to form on the floor and move the big fanged snout. It was mute, but Gaara probably could hear him very well, he always said about voices and 'mother'. He looked at it, reading the words from the movements of its fangs. That simple but great skill he mastered at very young age seemed to be very useable every time…

_Betrayal, betrayal! Kill him brat, kill him right now, abominable traitor, he did something so abominable, how dare he, how dare that father of yours do something like that, he wants to hurt me, he wants me gone, Gaara, kill him, kill him, make him gone, dangerous, dangerous abominable vermin, we will find better daddy!..._

…and now he wished he didn't. But Gaara seemed to look at him with too much of a fear now to do anything. More, he started stepping back.

'Father…' he spoke in quiet, shivering voice, closing his hands over his chest like if he wanted to tear his heart out of it 'Why… why… how could you… you liar…' he spoke. The sand sizzled madly but it started moving aside from him. It seemed there was no danger anymore. He straightened up, releasing the half-done seal and closed the space between them. Gaara moved back, until he hit the wall, looking at him with fear.

Absolutely wrongly. He didn't do anything yet. But after what he did, the kid would be sorry. Oh, so sorry. He was glad Minato turned off the damned seal. Or he would burn out from anger before he could do anything decent.

'You incoherent little ungrateful!...' he started, forming yet another portion of seal.

But then Gaara looked at him with a scream and unexpectedly, the sand that was moving always suddenly rushed at him. He stepped back, quickly ending the seal and shouting at the sudden darkness that covered him from above-

'Suiton! Oasis borealis!' -and gods' damn his teacher from his jutsu class and his lack of skills, he was never good in water jutsus so in this situation he managed only to wet the surface of the sand, but didn't produce enough of the water to make it change into a greasy pool of dirt. With a heavy thud he fell as the big wetted hand of sand covered him and held him up in a cocoon, up above, black eyes glaring at him from it. Now that was worse than bad.

'Gaara! Gaara get me down right now!' he shouted, using up all authority he had left to the kid, but Gaara just kept screaming, freaked out with fear too much to even listen to him. He was trapped. Great. There was beginning of his end. Just great. And where were ANBU when he really, really needed them? Weren't they supposed to be elite of shinobi or something?

For him they could be all be fired right now, go burn and die. Like he was about to, being trapped in cocoon of wet sand. What were the last images he wanted to remember from this life? Oh, definitely not his grandma… is that what you called a prelude to hell once you started choking on the sand that covered you? Oh, like hell… like hell he was going to hell!

He tensed his muscles and turned his body, banging with all possible body weight against the surface that held him tight and squeezed on him. Thankfully, the wetted sand was not loose enough to hold him tightly. After fourth frustrated bang, he finally freed his hands, along with part of his face. Oh, he never thought that air could feel so good. 'Sabaku-!'

But there was no time for enjoying the views. With one quick move he made six detailed seals, looking directly in the black eye that glared at him from the surface of the cocoon.

'Ninpou!' he shouted, opening his mouth widely as the squeezing became a little too rough too bear on his skin.

'Sous-!'

'…Mirage of Gold Dessert!' …and blew a grand portion of gold dust directly into the black eye, making it shut. A moment later, the room swirled, vanishing into a space-traveling genjutsu.

Ha. That really was something that added the meaning to 'in your face' phrase. He opened his eyes, noticing how the view changed into a massive, endless spaces of gold dust covering the floor and the darkened, grey sky without sun. He fell on his knees, digging in it, searching with his eyes and senses for Gaara. He was there. Somewhere near. Frustrated to the points of his imagination.

Oh, how he wished it was possible to learn kekkei genkai. He spent years on trying to master the infamous iron sand ninjutsu, trying to prove, that kekkei genkai was just a spoof, and of course, with no results. All he could master was a simple 'drowning in sand' and covering it with iron from his own body to the point he'd faint from being anemic, but he could not move it afterwards for being exhausted and when if he was having any strength left – there was always too little iron to add and eating meat over the any possible line was out of question. After one dinner with Third, he puked till the next morning.

But at least the gold he swallowed didn't affect his blood system as it was simply not digested. Thus, he moved his sands (or, if someone would like to know – gold covered iron that he got both from the old rings he kept on wearing on hands for that measure and iron in his body, whether he had enough of it) to the backyard of other useless jutsu till he could stand in space without endless falling into gold depths and use it for…

…different matters…

'Ow!' Oh yes, he always forgot. Knives. But just in time as the redhead showed up in front of him with a loud bawl, seeming to be more scared than angered, but so were frightened wild animals. The monster attacked because he seemed to feel that his existence was held unsafe.

He jumped backwards, reactivating the long forgotten meridians and catching the object with the tips of his fingers. Just in the nick of time, because the thing that slammed into the ground was not just a mere sand – it was a paw of Shukaku himself. It seemed that the monster decided to take over the child to have better access. No wonder Gaara was screaming like if someone was ripping him apart. He actually was being split in two for real.

And speaking of tearing, his muscles protested against such treating after so many years of not using them in the most basic moves. Freaking traitors – using puppets was the first thing he did when he was young. Which he was about to show right now. For the love of gods, he hoped the doll moved like he left it last time he was there – which meant roughly something around twelve years ago… 'Kugutsu no jutsu!' he shouted, making the doll straighten up and tense along with his jerking of hands, shaking off the remnants of the black sand 'Theatre of marionettes – begin!'

Gods. He never thought he would have to use this one for anything. Even after so long time, after so many years laying in the deepest darks of demeaning sand and loosing the paint, the smile and gentleness still shone from her face. Karura. He jumped aside from the ravishing punch that flew just over his face, made a series of cartwheels and pushed the figure upwards, still being amazed by the agility of a mere wooden doll. How did Chiyo make her look so real, should be forbidden. Almost like if she was a puppet made from real life. If he didn't know, he'd think it actually was a Sasori's doing.

'I'm sorry.' he murmured, more to himself than any of them and turned his hands up high, making the figure rattle and drop down many shining marbles. After a moment they exploded, catching the redhead in a sticky, hard to breathe cloud. That's right. Her favorite and only well mastered technique – Sticking Violence. Karura was never good with ninjutsu to begin with. And never was this doll. He never thought he'd be pressed to use this technique.

He made the puppet land heavily on the sand and prepared with endless knives he installed on it. They were little to no use against the sand, but he had to fight, somehow. Until he would think of any good technique – the sealing technique used for the second time now was a little too much for him right now. And Gaara didn't seem to want to listen. Reaching other puppets on this graveyard was beyond the question. They were buried down too deep. And even if, he didn't want to reach so far with his memory. The scars from the first unexpected training with Papa's Quartz's Wheel puppet had never really healed on his skin up until today.

'Mother!' could be heard from the yellowish mist covering Gaara as the kid wailed loud and clear, making the monster howl with him with ungodly loud bawl. Daichi tsked. What a horrible absurdity!...

'What the hell are you talking about, brat, your mother is right in front of you!...' he shouted despite himself and all he believed in 'The monster you're calling mother has never been the one!'

Clack. The knives fell out from the wooden hands, showing the good weapon for cutting and sawing. The horrible, horrible absurdity…

'You've been a very bad boy, Gaara!' he shouted, moving his fingers so the painted eyes would look at the face covered in tears, snot and glue 'So mother decided to come to you and give you punishment you deserve for all idiocies you said about her until now!'

Splosh. The poisoning needles fell down from between the wooden, chipped white of her fake teeth. Such a horrible smile she must've had. He was glad he was not facing the puppet himself. Gaara stilled, looking at her with widely opened eyes. There. He caught his attention. Finally, a distraction…

'Mother?...' …and an opening!

'Karakuri shibari!' he shouted, making the rigid limbs rattle and shine in the grey sky's light 'Kurogi – kiki ippatsu!'

The puppet spun and rushed forward, making the sand whirl and dance along itself, goldening the view and hitting…

…something soft…

'Mother!' Another cut. Again, not a hard surface. Just something soft and unresisting. He made the stiff hand move backward and against all he knew and believed until now – he felt sick. Blood. The knives of the puppet were covered in the most real, reddest blood alive. Against himself, he made his fingers straighten, stopping the doll in the middle of another cut. And just inches away from Gaara's head. The redhead wept.

Not normally. His head touched the material of old dress his wife wore days before giving birth to the last one from his children only with forehead. He shook I silence, wounded and did not dare to touch her. He looked at the floor. The sand didn't seem to cover him this time. It lied, lifeless on the floor, not reacting. And Gaara was sitting on the gold dust, curled in himself, bleeding from two gashes from his arms where, surprisingly no sand squirmed to stop the wound from leaking out. He closed his mouth. He was about to shout out the jutsu of poisoning needles at the kid since he was harmless now and standing just on the line of the mouth of the puppet. Clear shot. But somehow, the words died between his throat and mouth, making him mute. There was no use anymore.

'Mother…' The sand didn't react. He looked at how one of small hands rose and touched the faded azure of the thick wool and squeezed over it. Then he closed his eyes. That was more than insanity to do so. With one move he made the doll hide her all weapons and made it crouch in the mockery of hug over the kid. Gaara didn't move closer or further. He just cried. A scene from a distant dream that never once crossed his head.

He will be having nightmares till his death and will take it to the other side of hell. Maybe Karura would be merciful for him for that one gesture. May she rest in peace. With quick shake of his both hands, he made the technique dissolve in the puff of smoke, making them both fall down on their knees from the imaginary dimension and just onto the floor of devastated room. A moment of silence. A moment for them both. He gulped a breath, then swallowed a second one. Enough.

'Gaara.' he whispered, wondering if anyone was watching him from somewhere and if, why was no body reacting or trying to help still. Beside the room being covered upside down from sand and something that could be called bits of blood. 'Never forget what you just saw, understood?'

The redhead didn't answer. He looked up. Green eyes stared at him with empty stare. He didn't understand. He didn't even register what was it supposed to be for now on. At least now. Because if anything, sand was still lying on the floor, lifeless. At least that was good.

He climbed on his knees, trying to stand up, but in vain. The technique he used didn't do him good in this weakened state.

'Oh for the love of… I know you're seeing this, can anyone come and help finally? I don't think I'm able to also clean the mess that I made here!...' Maybe in different situation this would sound embarrassing, but right now… it didn't. It really didn't. He was not a Kazekage for doing everything by himself after all. After about ten seconds the door did, and for some insane reason smug looking Minato walked in, quickly closing the door behind him, leaving the ANBU on the other side. He surveyed the mess on the room and the thinly leaking walls of sand and mentally counted how much of his salary would have to go to cover expenses on this. But only for a moment.

Moving quickly to the pair, he gave the redhead a good look, automatically falling into the usual checking of wounds to determine if moving the wounded person was advised, and when he was sure that nothing was wrong, quickly grabbed the older redhead and moved him to the side of the room where the quietly weeping kid was. Considering most of the furniture had been thrown at and destroyed in the bed's general direction, it was the clearest part of the room.

'Are you okay…?'

Daichi let out a small laughter, leaning slightly toward Minato, but not touching him.

'I can't feel my small finger.' he said like if it was the biggest secret on the world '…but besides that I'm quite refreshed, you don't get to fight jinchuuriki every day.' The smug expression ticked him off a bit, because it looked almost like if Minato just waited for him to call him for help or just wanted to watch him struggle from affair, but he decided to let it go. Because if he didn't, somebody would probably have quite a view in a few moments. Minato didn't answer, just smiled at him in this strange warm and almost secretive way, before leaving him resting in a relatively clean corner, hands lingering on his neck a moment more than necessary.

Daichi looked at the warm smile with a little surprise, as this was something he didn't expect to view now – and he was not used to it. He felt almost like a magnet, falling onto the space of it, wanting to snuggle the owner and kiss it off the lips, but as Minato just left him in the corner, the bubbling emotion had no rights to go outside. He was not ready to give it up so quickly, though.

'Wait.' He murmured, catching him by the said hand and bringing him back closer for a moment 'What's with this expression you're sporting right now? I won't be paying you any more for what I have to from what's happened here, you know.'

'Mhhhh.' The blonde hummed, still smiling in that strange way and finally breaking eye contact to look at the faint dips of blood he'd gathered when he brushed the older man's neck. Releasing his hand pulled them up and almost to his lips, his tongue darting out to clean the red drops away. '…I guess I just really enjoy being reminded of why I called you 'sempai', Kazekage-sama.' he murmured soft enough he knew it wouldn't be caught by the cameras and just like that he was back to smiling in his completely normal way, threading through the mess towards the redhead carefully. When the sand didn't react one way or other, he just crouched next to the kid. 'Gaara-sama…?'

Daichi stared, speechless. For a moment, everything went mute. He could almost hear the wet sound of the tongue hitting the lips… He tore his eyes away, looking at the window on purpose, but not seeing it. Somehow, he felt a raging blush somewhere underneath all this sweat and skin, because he knew he was much more skilled than he was once and could easily swallow every roughening of cheeks. But it didn't mean it didn't look so A r o u s I n g And so T e m p t I n g … He almost forgot about that childish admiration Minato seemed to hold for him back in the days. It felt almost unimaginable to hear the words 'sempai' coming from his mouths again. That felt embarrassing. He didn't use any special technique. Everything he fought there was sidetracked from original purpose.

Funny it worked at all… But image got imprinted on his brain and he knew that he won't be having nightmares only from now on. His libido seemed to get hard to control after everything… He stayed in the corner, staring at the window and falling snow. Gaara didn't move.

Minato continued the slow stroking for a few moments, and when there still was no answer -from the redhead or the sand- he scooped the kid up, cleaning his face gently. The green eyes finally looked at him, acknowledging his presence, but not getting interested in him as in persona. Then, without a warning, the sand from the floor lifted and covered him completely, forming a big ball of sand that looked at Minato and hissed at him through the bemused smile. Minato, narrowed his eyes to keep grains from getting into his eyes and stared at the thing emotionlessly.

'Get off.'

The sand wavered a little, but it leaned down, forming partially a gourd on the kid's back, while slowly unhiding his face. Gaara again looked up at him, this time taking more interest in him than before, but not speaking up. Minato smiled gently at him, completely ignoring the weight of the sand despite the strain it was on his muscles, and used a hand to stroke the red hair a bit more. The sand in an instance caught his hand in tight grip, freezing his hand in the middle of the movement. Gaara looked at it with bored, uninterested stare.

'Are you a puppet too?'

Minato stared at the sand gripping his arm, too.

'No. Do you want me to put you down?'

The sand dissolved in a jerky movement as Gaara closed his eyes, grimacing in something that could be a prelude to another round of crying.

'No.'

But as luck was not exactly on side of anyone today, Chiyo indeed took much longer than it was needed to come there. If it wasn't for Baki and his persuasive methods of grabbing her and dragging to the room, she'd probably stay with mushrooms for the rest of the day and ignore all the ruckus. 'My, my, what's happened here?' she asked, not really expecting an answer as it was obvious for her that only a jinchuuriki could leave such damage and be in the same room with Daichi to make it look so disastrous. What was more worrisome though, was presence of the blond brat inside.

'Did I miss a party, ho ho ho?'

'…yes, quite good one.' murmured Daichi, using a wall to climb up on it, even if he couldn't really feel his legs yet. But that was distracting from any other images he could have made in his head so far (and he went pretty far already, if topless was any indication). 'This would cost a lot from Suna funds this year.'

'Oh, I bet.' said the Elder and closed the space between her and her grandson to move hands all over his body. Nothing broken, only bruises. His father's kid, as always. 'But I would suggest for you to lie down if you don't want to faint…'

'…would love to.' said Daichi with a vicious tone, but one glance toward the bed spoke more than thousands of words 'I don't have a place to lay down to.' The elder frowned, shooting a glance at Minato. If she didn't know, she'd think it was done on purpose by someone nearby… but the damage was too crushing to blame it on the skilled jutsus. Unless Minato made something really half-assed, which he was not capable of now because he was simply too skilled.

'I will let you lay down in my bed. I doubt I will sleep tonight anyway, I have weed to select.'

'You will be smoking shrooms again.'

'I'm not demented enough to use the stuff up on something so stupid, brat. Come with me.' she didn't even toss a glance at the kid, as jinchuuriki was always all right and never really wanted to let her closer than five steps. Even now the sand glared at her, though mostly it was occupied with watching the blond with something that could be called nervousness and anger. The kid shook in the man's arms, not crying and not hugging himself to anything, but obviously defenseless and exhausted. She looked at the blond. 'And how are you, brat? Any wounds to lick by old lady?'

Minato's shoulder still felt like if he had gotten a Novocain injection on it, but he could move it without much problems. He'd just ask Kakashi to have a look at it when he came back.

'I'll live. And don't worry about payment, I think I might have accidentally caused this with what I said… I'll ask some of my shinobi to ready another of the rooms. The suite's done for, but they all are supposedly fancy guest rooms after all .' He gave her a brilliant smile, still absently stroking the redhead's back. 'But thank you. Thank you for that mental image without which I couldn't have lived another moment in my life. I will make sure to treasure it.'

'My pleasure, brat.' said Chiyo, moving out from the room. If she was not needed there anymore, there was no reason for her to stay there. 'Rest, Kazekage-sama, you need to finally be back to Suna one day.'

'Rest assured, I will.' said Daichi with half of a smile, avoiding looking at Minato and steering his gaze at Baki 'Please, show me my room, I'm dead tired…' Baki glanced at Minato. He might've been a jounin but not a fortune-teller. To him all rooms in the mansion looked the same.

Minato stared back at him skeptically, wondering how the hell the head guard didn't know where everything in a room in a house he had pretty much left them to do whatever they wanted to, but refrained from a scathing commentary, considering the poor man was on his side and he had already stretched his stress levels enough for a single day.

'Southwestern wing, cherry wood doors, any room you want.' he supplied helpfully. Once the pair were gone, he stayed with Gaara in the destroyed room, surveying the disaster calmly as he waited for the trembling to cease or at least calm slightly. Again, he found himself alternatively thinking he should have kissed Daichi, considering there would be no moment to do it until he went to his house in a few days, and more importantly, that this could have been his life. A monster half possessing his son and him doing whatever was humanly possible to stop it. He was sure the Hyuugas would have something wonderfully fitting about fate and destiny, but the Hokage had never really been partial to poetics.

'It's cold.' he noted, stopping the stroking as he stared at the lazily trailing snow from the cracks in the windows. '…would you like some warm milk, Gaara-sama?' he'd offer cocoa, which was widely more successful with Hyuugas and blonde mini-me, but considering the lack of interest in the cookies, he supposed plain would be better. Gaara looked up at him, but the trembling didn't cease. More, he seemed to be shivering more as the time passed by, though he still was immune to the cold that blew to him from the window. He wasn't really – but he showed no reactions for it in all together. Then he slowly nodded. He didn't trust his voice enough to dare himself to speak out loud yet. The shadow in his head continued to wag its tail and pierce him with golden eyes like if he was made only to be poniarded by glare. She didn't talk. He didn't ask. The tension grew.

'We are going to the kitchen now.' he informed, to the redhead possibly, through more than likely to the cloaked figures waiting outside, if the words that followed it were any indication. 'You better move, I'm sure Baki-san has things for you to do besides eavesdropping. Like set security in Kazekage-sama's new room, or clean Gaara-sama's.' Which had been left in nowhere near as disastrous a situation as this one, but still wasn't a place anyone would want to leave a little kid in. Once he felt the figures move at what he at least considered a preventive distance, he adjusted the kid's growing weight on his arm and walked out and to the kitchen.

The sand followed in trails and he could feel the thing's eyes on him (on Gaara?) but there were no signs of hostility from the and towards him or the shinobi in the house, and they made it to the kitchen safely.

'I'm going to put you down a moment.' he told the kid, making a movement to deposit him on the counter. 'I need to get the milk and a pan. Then I will get you back up if you still want me to.'

The redhead nodded, giving him a quick glance and sitting on the table, still not ceasing the trembling. The sand followed, climbing up the furniture's legs and swallowing his ankles, knees, tights, stomach and chest in itself, spilling on the table like a rudely thrown fist of seed. Gaara looked at it, pale and mute. Mother…

'Mother… who was this woman?...'

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. Silence. Pierce. Glare. The shadow didn't move. Gaara curled more. He felt nervous, uneasy and for some unknown reason, his anxiety grew. The hands gripped the table, making it creak for a moment. A beautiful, beautiful woman whose hug hurt like thousands of blazing suns on the desert… What did the blond need frying pan for?

In the meantime Minato had gone through the usual contents of kitchen drawers and closets until he found something to boil the milk in, then through the refrigerator to find the milk (vaguely thinking that some of the higher points of Suna cousin would definitely be something Gai would appreciate as training diet) and finally located the milk.

Through all of the heating and making of the milk, he pointedly ignored the shivering kid right behind him, wondering what the hell could Daichi have done to him to leave him in this state, but no further threats or works came from him. Once done, he simply cleaned the semi-solid white thing that gathered on top of the milk and passed the now warmed up thing to a cup, offering it to the little redhead with a smile.

'Here.' If he wanted to be picked up again, he would have to at least give some hint to it, if not outright say it. Gaara caught it with shivering hands, glancing at the blond like if he blinked, it could be taken away. The white liquid has leaked out through the brim due the non stopping trembling. 'It's hot.' he said, looking at it and watching how his hands were covered in white heated up milk. He was used up to high temperatures, so his skin was not even feeling anything close to blistering. But once he made it closer his mouth…

'Ow!' …it exploded, covering his face and hands with a sand. Gaara stood still, almost like if he was being in control, instead of being the one who controlled the sand. Then he looked at Minato. '…sorry.'

The blond startled when the sand all but destroyed the cup, but the boy's reaction surprised him even more… not that the sand had destroyed it, but moreso that he didn't seem to have even thought about waiting for it to get less hot, or blowing on it… He would have given an eye to have Ibiki there at that moment. Reaching for the kid, he cleaned a stray drop of milk from his cheek.

'My fault, I'll be more careful this time around.' he said turning around and repeating the process. This time the cup he gave the kid was only halfway filled and he had taken it out before it had a chance to boil. 'Easier to handle.' he explained. 'I'll give you more when you are done with it.'

Gaara nodded, immediately dipping his mouth in it and swallowing it in small gulps. But somehow, it made him feel more uneasy on the tummy. He made a pause to gain breath before having another portion of gulps and looked at it, hesitating. The golden eyes narrowed.

'Who was she?' he asked in a quiet tone, not knowing how to acknowledge the alien idea in his head, almost like if there was another head in his head, who was thinking things he didn't understand 'She was so… so… similar…' A smile. A big toothy smile. Not nice… oh so not nice one… strange… foreign… alien…

Scary…

'Was she…' he stopped, looking at the figure. The tail stopped wagging, turning into a crescent over the head and overshadowing it, making the smile and eyes stand out, shine, glint… '…my mo-…'

The body of Gaara turned suddenly, making him let go of the glass and breaking it on the floor, making even more mess than before, but he didn't seem to notice that. The lithe body shook in one massive tremble like if he was having an epilepsy. Denial. He could not accept… could not bear… no… no…

'Mom-' He fell down on the floor with a heavy thud, barely belayed by sand. The glass crunched under his weight. Golden eyes reminded him of bright stars on the black Suna sky, the same color as never-ending depth of the sharp smile far away, far above… above him… Mother… Mother!...

This… this… this!... He let out a cry. In both dimensions.

'Gaara-sama!' If he didn't try to catch the kid it was simply because the sand would. And it did, only not as he was used to, not at all as it acted when he had fucking let the kid run through air. If he hadn't known better, he would have classified it as 'sarcastic help', if that made sense in any sort of spectrum… Either way the redhead was curled up in the floor and no one came… Because no one really cared what the hell happened to this kid. And Daichi… 'Gaara-sama…' he carefully reached for the kid, more than ready to draw back if this would lead to another attack.

Gaara grabbed his hand like if he was the only piece of wood in the middle of the storming sea and turned to face him, seeing him and not noticing him at the same time. The trembling still continued, making the kid almost impossible to stand up. He had to run. Run away from something there, from this image in his head, from the strange puppet that looked so, so similar... Run off somewhere… but he didn't know where. The eyes were the sky and the body was the sky, smiling at him, above him, around him, everywhere, laughing soundlessly, laughing without words and watching him, observing him… He had to hide… he had to hide…

'He-…' he started, but other two letters had died on his mouth. The sky was closer… it was going to fall on him… again… not again!...

_You have a bad, bad father._ It murmured. He squeaked, covering his ears. But he didn't let go of Minato. If minato had ever had any doubt the kid was Daichi's son (because the looks were not a dead giveaway enough,) he lost them the moment the kid grabbed his hand with enough force for the joins to creak warningly.

'Gaara-sama…!'

Using the grip the kid had in his hand, he pulled the redhead towards himself and held him to his chest, because that's the primarily instinct that needed to be satisfied in these situations. Even newborns that still couldn't hear or see anything instinctively sought contact to calm themselves… And to tell the truth, ever since he had become a father, Minato had found that his first instinct when Naruto or Kakashi were in danger was clutch at them as if holding them somehow made their lack of broken bones and gaping wounds a little more real.

Gaara leaned toward him with his whole body, shaking with fear and still crushing his hand with his grip, even if it meant holding the palm in a very uneasy position. Inside, curled into a small ball, covering his ears with fear, not knowing what to do and how to vanish. The syrupy-like, loud purring voice still rang through whole of him even then.

_Such a bad, bad father you have._ Could be heard as the sky suddenly lowered, circling him in a small hiding, moving around him _How could you believe such a bad father? Think that a puppet is your mother? How could you Gaara…?_

The redhead shook his head frantically, trying to not to cry, but sobbing altogether. He felt at unease, trapped, surrounded, at mercy… There were no words that could describe his helplessness, so he only whined, bawling in a stuttering tone.

_How could you, Gaara__?_ asked from around him, making him tense and tremble even more _Such a bad, bad father you have… he showed you a puppet to think that it's your mother… but you don't believe him, do you?_

Gaara let out a louder cry, covering his head under his elbows, trying to be tinier, the tiniest object in the room!...

_How could you, Gaara… _asked again, this time in a whisper that resembled shushing sounds of the sand _How could you… when your mother is me?..._ Gaara tightened the hold over his head, shaking it, protesting…

…something fell on his shoulder. He looked up. Lady. A nicely clothed, smiling, warm lady, just like the puppet one, but moving, living… and covered in sand from head to toe, just like him!...

'Mother!...' he bawled, letting the figure grasp him in hug that was not as gentle as the hug from the puppet, but it was much less hurting than the knives the wooden doll had. He started crying.

'Mommy!...' he hiccupped, getting closer, wanting to meet the body under the sand, but all he met was a cold surface of minerals 'Mommy, I… I'm sorry!... I'm sorry that I mistook you for that doll!... I'm sorry!...'

'It's okay, brat.' muttered the figure, smiling at him and making strokes through his hair, that felt so, so good, even if they were too hard, almost like if she forgot how much pressure to add to not make it detestable 'It's okay… but never forget that dreams are mirages and for children only…' Gaara nodded, still crying over the hard lap and not letting go.

The figure smiled, wide. But he didn't see that.

'Don't believe in dreams, never believe in dreams…' muttered the sandy mouth with the sandy teeth and sandy tongue 'Because I am real and the only real you will ever have.' Gaara nodded again, looking up. But the cheery, too cheery face has already melted, dismembering, falling away. He looked at it, surprised, but as it formed another shape, he didn't hesitate to hug himself to it. Big claws, moved around him slightly, making him fall up and down on it. The toothy green smiled with fangs.

_Such a bad, bad father you have…_ it muttered with low, booming purr. Gaara snuggled closer to the big paw.

'…so bad, very bad…' he muttered after the monster. Shukaku narrowed the golden eyes with pleasure. Gaara closed his. His mother smelled of leaves at winter… And then the paws closed over him. He had his mother. Green eyes looked up at the blond, blinking like if he woke from a long dream. The body, relaxed from some time, held closely on the warmth without much force. Minato's arm was free.

'Hello, mother.' he whispered, looking at the blue eyes, seeing them and the darkness, so not seeing anything but them. Then he cuddled himself closer, breathing in the calming scent. 'I missed you… don't leave me again.'

With that, the green eyes fluttered almost close, starring at the floor and breathing. He finally felt safe. It was at this moment that Minato realized Ibiki should have been part of the plan from the beginning. He could notice a lot of things others missed, but he also seemed to be oblivious to the most basic thought patterns. Jiraiya and Sarutobi-sensei barely knew the kid, Kakashi was too young, genius or not, Chiyo didn't care… Baki? Maybe… possibly… Naruto?

'Gaara-sama…?' his voice was soft. The boy had had some sort of trauma, called him 'mother' and looked about ready to fall asleep. The plans would have to change. Gaara tightened his grip over the ninja vest he held onto, but that was the only answer he got. Besides that, the redhead remained limp like a rag doll. The sand from under their teeth looked up at both of them with a smile that could be described only as satisfied and filled up with vengeance that was solved just right to make him feel just as happy.

'Gaara-sama…?' he tried again, pulling away just enough to get the kid to actually look at him. 'It's me, Namikaze Minato… Naruto's father.'

Gaara let out a sound that indicated that yes, of course, he heard him and reacted to his voice, but alas, gave no pinpointing of anything else – whether he recognized him or not. The loose body remained loose. Minato stared at the kid for a few seconds.

'Gaara-sama, do you know where we are?'

The redhead blinked, focusing his gaze for a moment, but not really, not caring. He felt safe enough to not care where he really was.

'Here.' je muttered. That should be enough for an answer.

'Here… where, Gaara-sama?' he felt a little idiotic by repeating the kids' name so often, but that's what you did with trauma victims. You did everything you could to help them focus. 'What village are we in?'

Gaara didn't answer.

'Gaara-sama…? I'm not your mother.' Minato said gently, shaking the kid very, very softly. He smiled back at the sand, only the smile it gave to the thing was a lot less nice than the one he gave to the kid. You are nothing. Nothing compared to IT. Oh, he'd get it fixed. No matter the cost… The thought died there, without as much as an agonic choke. The next breath he had forgotten about it already, forgetting the grinning sand in favor of the kids in his arms. 'It's just a visit… you will go back home soon, but first you have to stay a few more days, and you promised you would visit my house, remember? I already promised Naruto you would play with him.'

The redhead stirred, turning his head on the other cheek and looking from there on the other side of the room, not seeing it. Naruto…

'Let's go to Naruto then.' he said with a faint smile. 'It's so dark, mother, why is it so dark? I can't see anything…'

'I'm Minato, Gaara-sama,' he said calmly, picking up the kid and looking back at the grinning sand. '…I know you can understand me, you overweight beaver. What did you do to him?'

The golden eyes narrowed in malicious smile, then the sand rose, projecting small shapes of the letters from the sand, making them float on the air. 'PEECEFUL WACATIOMS'

He stared back at the thing unemotionally, a slim blond eyebrow rising.

'Tch… not only crazy but also stupid… learn to spell, monster, a four year old knows more about grammatics than you.' His hand found Gaara's neck and started stroking it softly. Skin. Really soft skin this time… 'Get him out of it.'

The sand smiled at him and immediately started forming a thick layer of sand under the blond's fingers. 'FOX' it wrote with next letters, making if land on the blond's shoulders like if they were and kind of sign describing him. Then Gaara budged violently, only to fall down into a slump state yet again.

'Mother?...' he asked against the blond's chest 'I think I saw Hokage for a moment… what's happening?...'

'It's gone.' he said unflinchingly, still holding the child close, even though the sand was pressing against his own skin in the most unpleasant of manners, not to mention it added weight. 'What, you need a drinking buddy? Feeling lonely at nights, one-tail?'

The sand rose from the floor, looking the blond on the face level with a pair of black-yellow eyes and a smile that was almost so happy now, pointing more at the lack of sanity now.

'ITZ NOT GON4' it wrote on the piece of sand that rose up with it. Gaara stilled, like if he was sensing that something was floating behind him 'LYING VERMYN.'

'It is. Ask anyone… What did you think I meant back then?' Minato smiled sweetly at him. He then grinned, narrowing cyan eyes coldly through the smirk. 'Way bigger, way meaner than you, fatass.'

The sand kept on floating in the air for a moment, then it dissolved into the ground, looking at the both figures with the same, malicious smile. 'FOX' it said and then wrote a thick vector, showing to the side where the little blond boy could be sensed, through the walls, snow, clothes and the body layers. 'LYING WERMIN.'

Minato's smile didn't dim as he opened the sink's faucet, filling the pot with water as he continued stare unaffectedly at the creature.

'Not like you, Badger.' he said, dumping the freezing water on the sand smile. 'Never like you. Now snap him out of it.'

The sand hissed, moving from the side to another, making the smile melt into the ground along with the wet blotches of the dirt and stilled. Gaara looked up at him.

'It's dangerous in here.' he said, turning his head slightly to the sides, looking at the ground where sand lied 'Should we run?'

'I don't see a reason to.' Minato said, leaving the pan and going back to stroking the red hair. 'Who am I, Gaara-sama?'

The redhead snuggled up closer, falling into strokes easily, like a starved animal for a piece of meat.

'Mother.' he muttered, breathing into the scent he felt. He liked it. He never thought it would be so different 'Don't leave me, please.'

'No, Gaara-sama.' he said gently. 'I'm Minato, Naruto's father, remember? I met your mother at her wedding. I have photos of it...'

...And Kushina was on them. The redhead nodded against him, but didn't let go of him. It was too dark. He could get lost. He didn't want to be lost. Just to be sure, he caught a piece of material in front of him and held, just in case.

'Okay.' he whispered quietly 'Only don't leave me.'

The blond winced and rubbed a hand over his face, something in the tone ringing ((I'm all alone)) too close home for comfort. Reaching for one of the chairs, he sat down, keeping the kid close and distractedly stroking him as he stared at the sand. The redhead didn't move, only kept on hugging himself to the hand or nuzzling the material under his face with pleasure. And talked. A lot. About darkness, warmth, Naruto, Minato, father and siblings. Almost like if he couldn't take a breath without uttering at least a word or two.

'I met Naruto. He is such a nice friend. But I can only trust him. Nobody else is to be trusted. Like that girl. She was nice. And blond too. Remember her taste? I remember. She was full of copper. I know you like copper. So I was happy. Are you happy mother? I hope you are happy. Father is never happy. He always looks at me like if I killed someone. He says you're dead. But it's not true. But he hugged me, did you know? It was nice. I like being hugged. I like body contact. But everyone is scared. I don't know why. Touching dead bodies is not the same... they get so cold too quickly. Do you remember Baki? That man with one eye… mother, why is he always there? I don't like him… he smells of jealousy…'

He stopped for a moment, then closed his eyes.

'It's so dark. And cozy. I could stay like that forever. Can we stay like that forever, mother? Without anyone… we would sleep, sleep forever…' And just when the redhead was about to loll off into the land of dreaming along with the rest of his consciousness the door opened and Baki came in.

'I report mission: new rooms for Kazekage-sama as successful. Has something happened there?...' He looked around, seeing the mess of glass and some liquid that smelled like goat's milk, only much sweeter. Probably bird's one. 'I'm sorry for my ANBU's lack of effectiveness.'

'Gaara-sama.' Minato's voice was gentle as he caught the jounin's eye and held onto it. He needed to discuss things with him, but firstly... 'If you sleep the sand will take over. And the sand wants to hurt Naruto. If Naruto's gone you will never see or touch or talk to him.'

The redhead stilled.

'Let's go to Naruto then.' he spoke for at least fifth time today. Baki looked at him with a frown, not understanding. He had never seen the kid being hugged so much by anyone. It was too dangerous.

'Prove me that I can trust you to be his friend, then.' he said calmly. 'Prove me that you will keep the sand from hurting him.'

Gaara bit on his lips. Then he, for the first time, glued off from Minato's chest, looking around. No, not the walls. No, not the ceiling. No, not the floor. He grimaced in a pained expression.

'I don't know where the sand is.' He said. A lazy crack on his cheek clearly indicated on the position of at least some portion of it. Baki raised his eyebrow high. What?...

'Then find out. If you can't control it, I can't trust you near my son.' he looked at Baki. 'How long will it take for Kazekage-sama to be well enough to visit?'

Gaara nodded at him and kept on searching for it with a frown. The sand on the floor sizzled, showing another malicious smile. 'THE KID IS MINE NOOOOOOW' it flashed for a moment and vanished like a one quick blast. Baki bowed down, trying to not step on the glass.

'At least few hours.' he muttered 'He doesn't say he is tired much, but Chiyo-baa-sama says otherwise. Personally I think it's a timer for her counting up the mushrooms. But I could be wrong.'

Minato somehow kept himself from making an extremely rude comment by reminding himself Baki hadn't exactly had an easy day either.

'I meant visit my house, Baki-san.'

The jounin bowed down deeper.

'Yes. It would be at least few days. The stadium of fever has smoothened up now, but just to not repeat the happening from the previous night… He is much better now, Hokage-sama, but the whole thing is taking slow progress.'

'You heard that, Gaara-sama?' he smiled down at the kid. 'You have that long to figure out a way to keep the sand under control. If nothing happens until then, I will trust you with my son. Is that a deal?'

Gaara nodded, but he kept on looking at the room like if he didn't recognize anything.

'But there's no sand.' he muttered, not understanding how that was possible. There was always sand. And now… there it wasn't. So… strange. He leaned down toward the chest of the blond again. It seemed there was no arguing. With no sand there would be no danger, but mother wanted otherwise and who was he to deny it to her? He wanted her to be happy after all.

'I need to talk with Baki-san now.' Minato said, stroking the kid some more before letting him rest on the floor. 'Go to your room and figure out what's going to it- we'll talk in a few days.'

The redhead looked at him, distressed. To his own room? But… where was it? He didn't want to go anywhere!... With a whimper, he caught on the clothes of Minato and held them in tight grips. If there was no sand, there was no protection and no leading. He couldn't let go.

'Gaara-sama?' Minato stroked the redhead again. 'Make the sand guide you. I know you can.'

'There is no sand!...' was the panicked answer. 'Mother, don't leave me!...' How was he supposed to do that? If the sand didn't respond there was no possibility for him to make it do anything.

'Gaara.' The man said, his voice still not unkind, but more commanding. 'Make it.'

The redhead stopped and slowly let go of the robes he was holding onto. Why didn't she understand?... He had never been without a sand for so long, as a mother she should understand… But she didn't. Turning around, he stepped forward, touching everything he met on his way, nearing the exit by mere direction and going out by it. Sand lied left on the floor.

Minato stared at it for a few more seconds. Then he walked at the sink, filled the pot with water and dropped it on the sand, just because he felt like it. The substance gurgled and moved, smiling at him with vicious smile and slowly, it bulged out in the same direction, almost like if It was lead on invisible, long thread. 'DIOD' it read on the way out. A few seconds later it was gone. Baki kept on crouching in the one position. Oh, how he was glad the Kazekage wasn't here. He was not sure if he could survive another tantrum of his to meet the expectations of weirdness here.


	26. Chapter Twenty Six: Ate my heart out

As soon as the boy was out of reach, the Hokage made a sign for Baki before making a hand seal and poofing away. A moment later he was outside the house. Some good dozen meters away from the house. It probably wasn't very kind on the jounin, but he needed somewhere where he knew for sure the and wouldn't come nearby. Over here, they could be warned by his own shinobi if the sand was nearby by any chance.

'I'll be brief.' he said once the bandaged man joined him. 'Daichi isn't safe near the kid anymore. So far Gaara's kept the raccoon from attacking him, but either the thing or Daichi himself did something and now Gaara's not in his right mind.' he hesitated about mentioning what had happened in the kitchen but figured that the head of security needed to be informed of these kind of things. He rubbed the back of his head in distress.

'You saw what happened in the kitchen. When I first took him there he was all right, but after a few minutes he seemed to have some sort of attack and went temporarily blind, after which he seemed to confuse me with his mother.' At least he could trust the older man not to be like Daichi and Kushina, who would undoubtedly made some comment regarding that topic. Worse if they were together, too… 'Both the raccoon and Gaara-sama are weak against genjutsu, so keep at least two ANBU that specialize on it with Kazekage-sama at all times. I will send a Hyuuga and Uchiha member and they will be under your command until new advice. I don't care if Daichi or Chiyo-sama like having foreigners inside the house or not. They'll be monitoring Gaara-sama for any change in chakra and let you know immediately, so you better have some plan up if anything happens. Keep in mind the thing already knows the seals are in place, though I don't know if it knows what they are for. At the very least, it suspects about it.'

And holy kages, if he hadn't turned them off less than an hour before the attack… He didn't even want to think about it. Not only would it undoubtedly cause Daichi enormous amounts of pain, at the very least.

'And when Daichi starts bitching against the new security, tell him it's either that or he will never get laid on this side of Fire country.'

Baki nodded hesitantly, agreeing to all conditions and feeling that if anything, this won't be a happy stay in Konoha after all. Too bad. And he was starting to enjoy it already… Without a word, he vanished to set up new rules.

And as he expected, Kazekage was less than pleased. More, he was distressed as hell. So much he was starting to think over the orders and actually wondering if it was not the best to stay in Gaara's room in exchange, even as the sand was acting quite violent now and two Suna shinobis has already landed in hospital with fatal wounds. Even if Gaara spoke about the sand like if he was searching for it, even as it pierced through the said ANBU who were screaming at him to take it back. From what it seemed, the sand gained new way to regain the control over itself, without Gaara's orders.

And so far, it all seemed to be more pleasant than sitting in one room with twenty Konohan ANBUs who seemed to be on guard but a little too loose for Suna standards, that was ticking Daichi more than anything and despite everything. If he was the one to speak, he'd state it as a mere excuse to bark at people he didn't want to see in his eye range. So far three Konohans has landed outside the doors already, one of them thanks to Kazekage-sama's hands himself. Being this itchy he was obviously having problems with containing his secrets. Baki could see It in his eyes. They were on a constant alert, like if everyone were trying to solve him out. So it seemed that years of living under pressure had finally brought out the paranoid out of the tense kid after all. What a shame.

For the love of sand gods, he hope next Kazekage would be less obvious and more reliable. He looked at the saffron haired man who looked back with glare such sharp that Baki winced. Daichi scowled. What the hell was Minato thinking? Why was he keeping him there? From what he knew, Gaara was acting quite strangely now and he had to provide safety to all people around him and not let his ANBUs go to waste for him being locked up! And besides, that many people was starting to make him uneasy. Years of loneliness was doing that to one.

He couldn't even pee without having a guard breathing on his neck. Oh, that blond was so getting it once it all would end. He was not going to walk for a week for all this. But alas, because he wanted to have occasion to take his revenge, he didn't protest out loud. Only lied down. And listened. The silence was filled with murmuring.

'I can't find, can't find it, where is it, mother, where is the sand, mother, where is it, where are you, I can't see you, can't you come back, I'm so lonely, so lonely, alone, come back, I promise I will kill anyone for you, just come back, I'm lonely, lonely, there's no sand, where is the sand, mother, mother…'

He was glad that if he didn't get close to walls he didn't hear it. Or he wouldn't be able to sit silent in one place. Because that was more than creepy. That was simply dangerous. He stared at the wall, hoping that it would give him opportunity to look through it at the youngest son of his, but without results. Once again he regretted not being born with sharingan. Those damned people were just too lucky. Too lucky.

'There's going to have to be a change of plans.' Yeah… they knew nothing good would come of such words. Minato was by nature a creature of plans. He was perfectly able to work under pressure and improvise (a little too well, sometimes) but he usually liked to have everything accounted for beforehand and a perfectly coherent plan flowing before doing anything. Changing it when it was at least ¾ done just wasn't usual for him. That foretold nothing good at all.

Which meant that what he had told the council regarding security from Konoha being landed to the Suna-nins provably had more to do with truth that lies. Effectively, as he informed the Sandaime Hokage, his sensei and student (who had finally arrived back with just scrapes and about ten stitches worth of wounds to account for), the raccoon had figured out they were doing something, had done something to its Hosts and now was an even greater menace than before. And he still needed time to actually teach Daichi how the things branded on his back were supposed to work.

Originally, the Hokage had truly offered to help his friend because his son had asked for it, because his wife would have wanted him to, because he wanted to give his friend a hand in something that he himself could have ruined with his own son… and maybe, just maybe, because he felt he owed him something for forgetting about him for six years. Now, on top of that, he couldn't help but being glad he had, because Gaara rally was a danger for everyone around him.

This breakdown, this episode, this attack he was having, it could have happened whenever. Suna might just have dropped the enraged Bijuu in the middle of it and it would be the Nine tail's disaster all over again.

'We are going to need more people.' Minato rubbed at his eyes tiredly, then finished applying disinfectant on the grey-haired teen directly in front of him. Not because Kakashi couldn't get it done himself, even though backs were a bit of difficult to reach spots, but he liked to do it himself. Like that odd, paternalist feeling that drove him to hug Naruto whenever he had thought him on danger, dressing minor wounds was always reassuring at some level. Especially when it was missions that took longer than three days. 'Shikaku, for sure. Some Hyuugas, but I don't want to get Hotaru-san in this…you've worked with Itachi before, is he a good decision, Kakashi-kun…?'

Kakashi winced a little, but then he smiled, turning back to the blond.

'Itachi is a prodigy, sensei.' he said with a light tone, even if the tending of the Hokage had its sharp edges 'Working with him would be increasing our chances to win anything with anyone.'

Minato made some noise between a snort and a chuckle, which in hokagese translated to being a prodigy really didn't mean much to him.

'Yes, but he's never been against an Ichibi.' Which Kakashi had. Briefly, thankfully, but if it hadn't been for it, Minato probably wouldn't be alive right now. It wasn't the fact Itachi's absurd age, as Minato had made jounin at practically the same age, and if he hadn't been offered ANBU position until much later, it was only because the team that him and the two redheads had put up together had been so effective no one wanted to disband it until the very end of the treaty that allowed intervillage teams.

You didn't know what you were against until you actually faced a tailed beast. And Shukaku really might not be as much a threat as an enraged Kyuubi could be –It was easy to see he was more easily distracted than the Fox- but that didn't mean he wasn't a terrible threat. The fatass raccoon might be mad, but that obviously didn't make him stupid, regardless of what the Hokage told it in its face.

'… he is the best genjutsu user, though. And we need that.'

He would have given an arm to be able to bring Ibiki here and lengthily expose the matter to him to hear what would be the most appropriate use to an illusion when the kid was concerned, but it would be too much a risk. He was a hard person to read, but he didn't want to expose himself to an specialist and have him find out what he was trying to do. Not because he didn't think the council wouldn't eventually think that the seals were a great idea. The problem was that they would undoubtedly do so when it was too late to do any good. Like always.

'Ideally, I'll take the Kazekage somewhere away from the kids and explain him how to use the seals, then we can plan a specific location for us to try it, but we need to be ready to have him use them at the moment, so we need to keep Shukaku contained in this area.'

'I'm not leaving you alone with that man.' the sage said, expression sour.

'You are. I need everyone I can spare with Naruto-'

'I'm not leaving you-'

The blond turned around, staring at his teacher with an unusually aggressive expression.

'Sensei, I don't know what you think of me and Daichi-kun and I frankly don't care. I'm not asking you for permission to be left alone with him, I'm telling you I need you to make sure his possessed son doesn't kill mine, which right now somehow seems a little more important to me than whatever is going through your mind right now. I'm almost thirty and perfectly able to fend for myself. My baby isn't, so I'd like to think I can trust you to remedy that.'

The sage slightly gaped at his student, as this kind of talks, not to mention this tone, were only received when Minato felt his subordinates (more than usually a certain pair of redheads that couldn't live without going for each other's necks day in and out) were behaving especially stupid and his patience had all but reached its limits. He refrained from answering something completely out of line for one's Hokage's by begrudgingly agreeing to the fact the blonde's words were true. His student might or might not be aware of what the way the Kazekage stared at him meant, but he was perfectly capable of getting the man off himself if he didn't want him there.

At least he could be assured that the blonde wouldn't be brought down by some momentarily slip when there was a very real treat to his son. The fact that he had thought of him to start with was amazing enough, considering his usual treatment of the five year old.

'…you are only twenty seven.'

'Still over nice dozen of years since you had to worry for the loss of virginity.' Jiraiya refrained from telling him that if he had been vilely tricked by the red-haired monster his student had ended up marrying, that would never had happened.

Kakashi looked right and left for both of them, his smile ceasing as his visible eye widened wider and wider just to have a look of pure shock on his face. Which was not far from what he originally felt. Actually, he felt so shocked he almost felt mute. Almost, because there was one question no one now could stop him from saying. So he took a deep breath and asked with his fragile, wavering voice.

'What virginity?'

Minato stared back at his student, before assuming a thoughtful look.

'Well… Kushina took mine when I was sixteen, so that can't be it... I guess sensei must mean a-'

'I don't mean anything. Stop torturing the poor kid, Minato.' The blond grinned at his sensei and caught the teen in a hug, rubbing his cheek against the top of his head.

'But he looks so cute when I say something traumatizing!'

Strangely, unlike him, Kakashi didn't protest against holding. He just stared in front of himself, getting a little more paler with every passing second. Tick. Tick. Tick. He looked up at the blond. Click.

…and everything clicked in.

'Oh my gods, Kazekage-sama is g-' …he stopped, feeling even more trauma coming up to him. He went to the man's room. Alone. At night. Oh gods. The nightmares of what could have happened won't leave him alone from now on. 'Sensei, please, don't let him…' he wailed in a weak tone, feeling like crying from the shock 'That's too scary to happen, I can go with you and protect you if you need me, I don't want to have you hurt by this man!...'

The blond sweat dropped.

'Am… am I really that much a delicate little flower you feel the need to protect me?' he asked with a nervous laugh. Kakashi looked up with teary eye.

'It's not that I don't trust you…' he said, sniffing a bit '…I'm just afraid of him. Kazekage-sama is just too scary...!'

The blond rolled his eyes.

'Oh, please, you all act as if he'll try to rape me-'

'That's what he's been going after since you've been twelve!' his sensei suddenly exploded. Kakashi stilled, looking at the blond like if someone had hit him with something very heavy and not suited to just hit, but to kill especially.

'Since twelve?...' he asked in a squeaky voice, more seeming like if he was going through teenage boy's voice changing and swayed dangerously, like if he was about to fall on the floor in a faint. In the last moment he caught onto Minato's robes and hugged himself to him like he never did, but really, that was not the most important thing right now.

'I'm going with you.' he said with a tone that meant 'I-don't-budge-unless-you-dig-me-from-the-very-deeply-burried-hole-in-earth-and-you-would-have-to-dig-for-thousands-of-years-to-just-achieve-one-small-flinch'. Then he looked at the blond and burst into tears 'I can't believe how hard life you lead, senseiii!... That must've been hideous, I'm so sorry, I didn't know, but if I only kneeew!...'

The blond just stared at his teacher with narrowed eyes that silently promised horrible things to come.

'Kakashi-kun.' the Hokage said in his best paternalist 'there's-no-monster-in-the-closet' voice. 'I'm really very thankful that you care so much for me… But for one thing, Daichi-kun would have you flattened against a wall before you managed more than one seal. In second place, which apparently I have not yet managed to stress badly enough… . .of myself. And lastly, no matter what sensei seems to think, Daichi-kun has never done anything reprievable to me.'

Morality was a personal point of view after all, wasn't it? If anything, what the redhead had done the last time was encouraged and reprisal worthy.

'I need you to take care of Naruto too. I'll be fine on my own.'

'I still can help!...' said Kakashi, looking at Minato with stubborn glare. He was not going to let go after he saw he was useless against the foe of his teacher when he could. And sensei did so many things for him already!... He could just not sit still like that! 'I can send a clone! Or a bunch! They could be useful!'

'Kakashi-kun.' Minato said, softly, gently, with a sparkly smile. 'I chose as my most trusted man to take care of my son. Do that, or I will set you whole collection of adult-themed icha icha -that you really shouldn't have either way, and yes, I know you buy them and where you keep them- on fire, spread the ashes, and the ban the collection from Leaf village.'

Kakashi cringed in himself. Literally breaking. Then, with big hardship he turned his head to Jiraiya begging for help with the sole teary stare. Jiraiya wasn't much help. He seemed to be similarly horrified.

'You can't ban Icha icha from Konoha...' Minato looked thoughtful.

'That's right I mean… Only someone with the power to change law and willing to force politicians to do as he says, like… the highest authority, like, let's say – the Hokage would be able to ban something like that so arbitrarily. '

Kakashi smiled. And let go of the blond.

'I… I see, sensei…' he muttered in a quiet voice, staring down. Then he looked up with the most gravy smile ever seen 'I'll be praying for you… in heavens…' Because like that, Minato was done for. He remembered well the result of friendly sparring. The blond didn't stand a chance. And now he was refusing the help he could get. Irresponsible. And what was the worst – with cards he could not beat. He felt like if he was preparing a funeral to the blonde. 'I'll go now… and get some pack of stamps… since you won't be getting back to Konoha anytime soon…'

'Sure thing, Kakashi-kun.' Minato said calmly, giving the younger boy a pat in the head and a last cuddle. 'Take the kids with you and buy some yakisoba while at it, why don't you?'

'I'll give them yakisoba… dress them on Christmas… buy presents for school… and take care of them till the rest of their life… so don't worry… I'll be a good foster-parent…' Mumbling such words, the grey haired nin slowly walked out of the room on weak legs. He didn't know what exactly he was saying, His head felt empty. And dull. And many, many more, he just didn't understand what. Beside the fact that Minato was going to be done for. Yes. That was very, very unhappy.

Minato waited until the door closed behind the teen before slowly moving his head to pierce his teacher with his most foreboding gaze. The Sennin had the decency of looking away guiltily, but ruined it by adding something under his breath regarding perverts from Suna trying to steal his students.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The following days passed quickly. At least for Daichi. The unnatural surrounding with strangers made him not think about his condition and he didn't even blink when Chiyo announced he was fresh as vegetable and could get off the much less comfortable bed than he had before. If only Gaara didn't destroy it he would have a peaceful sleep now, but since the kid went on rampage – he could only dream (he hoped that at least Minato's bed wouldn't be as hideous as those there, and yes, he went there with his thought, but only for a moment as it was too dangerous to touch that topic now – too fresh and too hard. He couldn't try to bend toward it more now even if he wanted too – too many people around gazed at his face). And speaking of the kid…

As the days passed by, the kid started to vanish. Literally vanish, as after every hour he kept on getting thinner and thinner. It seemed that the monster, trying to break out from the prison it was in, started chewing on it in attempt to get out. And with much success at that – the sand got more stronger, violent and aggressive after every hour. So, at the beginning of the fourth day, when he was allowed to visit his own son finally, the usual tentacles from sand flashed just before his own very face when he entered the room – as the usual range was few centimeters away from Gaara's body. They flashed – and they laughed.

He felt the shiver going through his bones. He could actually hear the voice of Shukaku. The booming, faint laughter ringing off the walls. That made his hair on the neck stand straight.

'Gaara?' he asked, looking at the redhead. The kid stilled, then turned toward him, looking at him, but not noticing him. The skin on his face was void of baby fat, making him look like one of those many beggar's kids who didn't eat for days. He winced. 'Gaara, it's me-'

'Father?' asked the kid, interrupting the speech. Shukaku laughed again, slashing the air just before his very own nose once again. He didn't flinch. 'Father… why are you here? Where's mother?'

'In her grave.' he answered truthfully. Gaara's face turned for a moment into something ugly, something, he didn't want o see there ever again, but against all his hopes he just did. Then it vanished.

'I can't hear her.' he said, then started touching the floor again 'That's good, that's good… because I haven't found the sand, I would be forbidden to see Naruto…'

Daichi blinked, looking at the floor. The sand smiled at him, writing something on it. 'I LIVE WITH A STUPID.' He stepped on it. The sand didn't backslash on it, just started dancing around his foot with a laughter again. He sneered at it.

'We're going to see him.' he said, not looking up. The sand, surprisingly, didn't smile back, but… mimicked his facial gestured. That made him frown. 'Get prepared.'

The redhead stilled, looking with unseeing gaze at the desk. Then resumed searching.

'We can't.' he said quietly 'I'm still searching for the sand.' Daichi frowned deeper, moving his nose in a disgusting manner. He stepped forward on the sand, making it crash and dust under every step as he made it to hurt the invisible chakra monster using his strength. At the third step he was stopped by two strong paws of Shukaku. He scowled.

'Let go of me.'

The monster snickered. Then the sand moved closer, reaching his ears.

'The deal, Kazekage-brat. We make it or you don't get any closer.' whispered in a sharp, barking tone that couldn't belong to Gaara. But he knew that roar. He could recognize it everywhere. He closed his eyes.

There was nothing more thoughtless than making a deal with an ichibi. He looked down at the kid.

'I'm not doing any deals with you.'

'Then you're not getting closer.' With that, Daichi was thrown away with a heavy punch that rang in his bones like a symphony. He hit the floor. Gaara looked up at him, trying to decipher what was it. Then he let his head fall down and resume the searching yet again. Such a heartless monster he was. Daichi gritted his teeth.

He hadn't got time. He had to go to Minato and bring the kid with himself to get rid of the demon the quickest way possible. But it seemed to be futile. He got up. He had to try.

'Gaara.' he said once again with a harsh tone. The redhead didn't even look up 'Come with me.'

'Not yet.' Slide, slide, slide, hand on the floor, searching, touching the sand and not feeling it… that wasn't even funny.

'Now!' he ordered in the most steely voice. The kid didn't budge. He moved closer. And was punched back yet again.

Futile. Futile to the rest. The people who came after the second attempt of attack, were slashed to the bits. He laid on the floor, feeling how the red blood soaked through his sock and wondered. Wondered again why the Shukaku did not kill him just when it had occasion. He was now completely out of control and could have cut his throat clean, and yet, it didn't. Was it still that stupid grate- (thanks, brat). He shook his head slowly and got up on standing position, looking at the thin arms of his third child. He was being eaten alive. Who knew what was happening with his memories… Gods knew what would happen if he would forget him and his control over him. He had to act quick.

'What do you want?' he asked loud and clearly 'Tell me and I'll consider my offer.' The laughter boomed off the walls as the sand wiggled under his feet, Daichi didn't flinch at the stinging sensation. He knew where it was going. He felt that it couldn't go any other way. Ichibi was a greedy monster. Not that he wanted to bend into any of his ways.

'It's blood.' it hissed into his ears. He felt the sand reaching the fingertips of his hands 'Your blood. I want to taste it, drink an ounce… a spoonful, a cup, a bottle would be nice… Kaze-kagey-sama.' He looked down at the kid as the laughter rang yet once more. Gaara didn't react, not even acting like if he knew anyone was in the room. He couldn't be getting deaf too, right?... Because if he was…

'I agree.' he said, knowing, that his blood was not pure, knowing, that it was bathed in poison and knowing it was idiotic to do so, but also knowing, that Shukaku wouldn't eat him alive. He had too much of a value to him still. He bit on his thumb, wanting to let the droplets fall, but before he knew it, the sand rushed up at his both arms and covered it in thin layers, making them slash the skin at the small wounds. And then it got inside. Under his skin. He had sand in his veins. That was more than funny grotesque parody at what Tsuchikage kept on saying. Stone-hearted Iwagakure, soul-aflamed Konoha and mud in his veins as the leader of Suna. Finally, he could say it came true. Even if it hurt like seven hells. He was used to that already.

'Gaara.' he said, through his gritted teeth. 'Let's go.'

The kid looked up at him.

'I have to find the sand.'

He smiled painfully.

'Don't worry.' He murmured 'I found the sand. It's in me.' Silence befell. The walls full of sand murmured in ancient language he never heard of. Shukaku searched. He had to hurry. He looked down. 'Yes. I truly found your sand.' He uttered 'Come with me, Gaara.' More silence. And then, just then, the redhead got up without protests. And without warnings he hold his hand like if he was seeing clearly in the middle of the day. But his eyes were still covered in the thick mist. Daichi grimaced, seeing how his own blood splotched on the kid's palm. But the little redhead didn't seem to mind. Or notice. At all.

How ironic.

'Let's go then, father.' he spoke and led the way. The sand started laughing and it trapped itself on his very own back, making him hunch for a moment. He looked at it. The gourd. Shukaku formed a gourd on his back. And still kept on penetrating his wounds. But there was not getting away now. He moved after Gaara. To Minato.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Naruto didn't know what to expect. He knew his dad had been talking with several Hyuuga and Uchihas on the past days, and Kashi had told him that they were doing some very important things for him, but he had no idea what they were, only they weren't good. Daddy was always left thinking very hard after them. Now, this morning, when he'd gone say good morning to him, his daddy had told him today Gaara would come for visit. He would have been ecstatic if it weren't for the fact that his daddy hadn't been smiling. He had been really very serious and Kashi, who had been acting unusually clingy of his daddy had explained to him that when he came he had to be careful with him because Gaara wasn't feeling very good. So nothing about roughing around or training and much less jumping.

And yet that wasn't it, either. He hadn't seen Gaara in over ten days, but he had been able to talk to him, only there hadn't been answers from his last letter, but that wasn't it either… It was like when they came, the first time. Especially that night, he'd been so unable to sleep he had gone to his dad's room to see if he could get him to tell him a bedtime story and Minato hadn't been there, so he had slipped into his bed and waited… it was shortly before the Hokage returned that he was finally able to relax, and even though he still felt a little weird, it wasn't that odd emotion… or hadn't been, until four days ago.

That feeling that he should be somewhere else, doing something more… Something… calling. Not nice. Something in places where it shouldn't be so… so… (( Intrusive )) someone messing with his stuff. His places. His, his, his… (( Mine )) .

He'd been hyperactive and nervous the past days, to the point he'd gotten scolded by even Ero-Sennin but he couldn't help it. He slept very little, but was alert at all times, feeling itchy and irritable, sometimes just rolling around the room because he needed to do something with his body, spent too much time asking being held and sitting on their laps Because they were (( His )) and he needed to touch (( Mark )) them so everyone would know how much he loved them and that they were with him.

Minato knew that they were coming as soon as he felt the little body in his arm tense and Naruto straightened in his hold, turning around to stare at the snow-covered path with cerulean eyes with pupils that all of the sudden had thinned to slits.

'Shh, baby.' he murmured, reaching with a hand to stroke the back of his neck. The blond shivered pleasantly, but didn't relax much. There wasn't much he could do about it. He had checked the seal three times already just this day. At least a dozen times in the past three, not to mention all the times he had asked Jiraiya to do it, but there was nothing wrong with it.

The seal was working as it should, the Fox's chakra was leaking through whenever the host felt it was needed. When he thought of the list of casualties the Suna shinobi had had, he didn't think Naruto was exaggerating. Just thinking about leaving the little blonde with that thing was enough to make him want to tear his skin in stripes and eat them, with only his sane mind telling him Shukaku obviously wanted Naruto alive as he needed him whole to draw the Fox out. As far as parental reassurances went that wasn't much at all. At least he was semi-confidant they were as prepared as they would get to be.

He knew from the reports despite everything security measures were effective and Daichi was unscratched, but even so it was incredibly relieving to see him walking by his own means with that characteristic tilt that usually meant someone was likely to get his head bashed in because Sabaku no Daichi had just gone past simply irritated into the dangerous kingdom of pissed off royally. What was holding his hand was the problem, and he instinctively tried to keep his son against him but the little blonde squirmed away and was sprinting past the yard and to the pair before he could do anything. So he just crossed his arms and dug his fingers into his skin until they went numb from the force of it.

'Gaara!'

He knew something was wrong the moment he saw the strange way the younger redhead moved, but it wasn't until he was up close that he noticed that what little he could see from Gaara that wasn't covered in heavy winter clothing was all wrong. He caught the redhead in a fierce hug that meant he had forgotten all warnings and coincidentally broke the man's hold on his son and just glared daggers at the older man, holding Gaara to him in something between protection and possessiveness.

'What did you do to him?'

Daichi looked at the blond with disinterested stare as he twitched his hand free, trying to cover it discreetly in the long sleeves. The redhead didn't move, just let himself be hugged like if he was a living doll. That blond brat again. With that glare again.

'I defended myself.' he said simply, looking the kid in the eye, even if it wasn't very pleasant. The eyes… They brought too many memories. He looked away 'Why don't you ask Gaara-' The redhead twitched. Daichi looked at him. What was he…? Then Gaara smiled. 'Oh go-'

It all went too fast. Just before he had time to even think, he grabbed the blond by his neck, throwing him away and he himself jumped back, wetting his robes on the wet ground. The sand from his veins suddenly jumped out of him, making the holes in the various places of his body (thankfully, only the size of needle, so it took him all to grimace at the feeling of being pierced by senbon needles from inside). Gods damn it!... He looked at his son.

Gaara stood on the ground just like before, his face looking lost as he broke their connection and the sand sizzled madly just in front of him, in the place where the blond just stood. If he stayed there any second longer, he would have a very unpleasant wound, if not see-through hole. As a human. He didn't know how Kyuubi could've protected the kid, but knowing stories about the powers, he knew there would be no absolute defense or any kind of wall. So it wouldn't be pleasant. Gaara looked to the side, following the sounds the blond made, watching invisible spots on the white ground.

'You… sound familiar.' he murmured, not doing anything of the fact that the sand now seemed to be surrounding him like a living pair of chains 'Who are you?'

Jiraiya had made a movement to get Naruto out of the immediate area of danger, but the Kazekage who was thankfully much closer took care of it, so he retained his position. He took a moment to wonder why the blond hadn't tackled the kid himself, but Minato seemed to have disappeared. Despite the violent way he was thrown away, the little blond regained equilibrium halfway and landed on all fours, not like someone caught off guard and barely catching himself, like some sort of dangerous little animal in the middle of a fight, body tense as hands and feet dug into the loose snow.

'Gaara.'

Had Gaara just… attacked him? Him! In his lands! The odd thought died there as it was replaced by a more humane emotion- hurt.

'…why did you do that for?' he cried, crouching lower still, his small body tense. 'I thought we were friends!'

Gaara looked for the moment at the blind spot, listening, hearing the situation out. Friends? Friends?... He had only one friend. And it was Naruto. But here… This chakra seemed to be hostile, unhappy and full of malice toward him. Something inside him shivered and felt nauseous of getting closer to it. He listened and blinked, looking at the same spot. It was cold. Friends?... No… impossible.

'I diiidn't dooo anyyythiiing.' he said in a slow motion, like if he couldn't word words out. He turned his head in front of himself, sniffing the air. 'I don't know who you are. You're not my friend. Stay away or I'll kill you.' He didn't have the sand but throwing threats was his second nature already, so he didn't stop himself from speaking it out. The sand in front of him smiled, then let out a bark of laughter, that in the silence of snowy atmosphere could be heard very well.

'Naïve brats! Naïve, naïve, naïve! Ba ha ha ha!'

'What do you mean you don't know who I am!' His hands made fistfuls of the snow under it, all the way to the dark earth under. 'I'm Namikaze Naruto, and you promised me you would be my friend, you liar! Why are you playing like this, this isn't funny!'

The redhead moved his head around, sniffing the air, ignoring him altogether. Then after a second or two, his face scrunched in an ugly grimace of utter hatred.

'Naruto is my friend.' he murmured, clicking his lips softly at each other 'Don't try to impersonate my precious Naruto!...' He pointed his hand out at the side of the blonde, but the sand didn't follow. More, it just continued swirling around him like if he didn't make a gesture. Not feeling pressure under his hands, Gaara let his hand fall back on his side.

His friend always felt like a nice ball of happiness and smelled of forests and grounds. Here everything smelled of forests and grounds. So he had to distinguish every other sign. He looked at his feet. Oh. He felt lonely.

'Mother, I'm so lonely and there's an enemy on my way, how should I fight him if he doesn't get squished in the sand? Ah, I don't understand what you say, mother…'

'Gaara, stop talking to your mother and talk to me! Why are you ignoring me? I'm not invisible!' He felt angry. Angry because he felt hurt, hurt because he was being ignored, like everyone else in this village, like everyone who pretended not to see him and didn't answer when he spoke and when they did they said bad things about him- 'Why are you treating me like everyone else?'

Gaara kept on moving his head, this time forward Naruto, but didn't even bat an eyelash at his words. What was this thing trying to say?

'…you're probably tired, I know, that's why you're not responding, that's okay, rest, you've done too much, I will be there for you… I will tell you a story… I met a hostile person on my way and it tries to know why I'm ignoring such a hideous creature… who wouldn't want to ignore such a hideous creature, it's something to be destroy it only, take over, my land, my world, mine!...' he stopped for a moment, making the sand form a fake fur in full defensive position. '…should I fight him, mother? But Naruto is waiting for me, I can't waste my time, what does he want from me? Why would I want to talk to a person I don't know? Mother, it's so cold in there…'

'Fight me…?' The blond's voice was small. A shudder wrecked his small body and his legs gave out., leaving him kneeling on the damn snow and staring at the little redhead incomprehensively. Creature. Creature, animal. Monster. The things they'd call him…! 'You said you wouldn't hurt me.' he said, his voice small, expression miserable. His expression suddenly hardened, even as the first tears started to spill. 'I asked you why would you want to and you said you wouldn't! You lied to me! You were crying and I wanted to be your friend and you lied to me! Liar, you are like everyone else!'

Gaara looked up, watching the sky with unblinking eyes, even if the snow fell into his pupils. Soon, his eyes were all tearing up. But he didn't even feel that.

'Everyone else… I wish I was like everyone else…' he said in a thoughtful murmur, then turned his head to the side from where the voice came. 'You're too loud. I don-' The rest of the words was unheard as the sand suddenly rushed at the blond with a fast speed. But he didn't know that. All he heard was a quick mumble of mix of voices. There was one scent that stood out, but he needed to identify it. Before that, it stayed as a curious unknown in his mind.

There was a black blur, something black- a crow?- that was caught on the sand attack as it rushed towards the little blonde, red and black mixing for a moment before the sand slammed against Naruto, throwing him several meters away and cutting the exposed skin.

'Mangekyo sharingan!' suddenly many more crows had appeared, taking the angry shot of the sand and changing into a glue, then gluing the sand together, making it fall down on earth, lifeless in a sticky. Gaara didn't seemed to be fazed. The remaining crows attacked him, getting close to piercing him with their claws, but as they got in touch, they instantly vanished. Gaara didn't even pay attention to the sounds.

Itachi frowned. How it was possible for someone to escape the ultimate Mangekyou sharingan? Even the sand got cheated on, so the little kid did not? He gazed deeper into his mind. He saw darkness. And nothing beside that. Gaara inside, hugged to the ground, in the dizzy state of half-consciousness. He looked up. The walls seemed to be strange… they fed off chakra… He looked closer. Closer. Closer… The walls were made of sand. More, the walls were made of big claws. It looked like a big version of something that just before shot toward Naruto- he drew out his sword, nipping at the outsides. But just as he took out his head, he froze. It was… a monster. A big scary monster, a monster of the host!...

_I will eat you._ it said. Itachi screamed.

And opened his eyes. Ah. His hiding. So he was okay. But what was it? A reverse mangekyou? But the brat didn't even get under the spell!... Something was wrong here.

Daichi looked at the blond with surprise, but didn't protest against the hug. More, he actually hugged back, falling into the squeeze with more than happy sigh. Even in those hard times 'Who would I be to not do that…?' He muttered against the material, stroking the man's back as Minato seemed to be a little too shaken for his tastes 'I'm sorry for this… all. All of this.'

'Are you kidding?' the younger man said with a little laugh. 'Better to take care of this now before you decide to throw him like this as a last resort…' Pulling away quickly, Minato brushed his head in a nervous gesture, then took a few steps away.

'Okay, back to battle mode.' he flexed his fingers placing them in the first set of seals. There wasn't time to think about what was happening or why, much less how it had gotten to it, no time to wonder how the mad raccoon had managed to get Gaara into such a state or wonder if Naruto and Kakashi were safe. It was now zero to countdown and both of their son's lives depending on a set of seals that had never been properly tested. 'Let's just hope you are not too old a dog to learn some new tricks, Kazekage-sama.'

Daichi looked at them with a serene expression for a moment. Then he let out a tight, confident smile he always used when he was getting ready for battle.

'You can bet your money on it, I'm fully capable to do my job properly.' he said, preparing for any possible pain or tug that could come to him. 'There's nothing more of a value than the future.'

Above them, the first drops of snow fell.

#+#+#+#+#+#

On the other side of the house, Gaara sharply turned his head to face the place where his father was, looking at it with a an alerted expression. This scent… this scent felt like…

'Mother?...' It vanished too soon to tell, so he didn't know, he had no idea, he… The sand fell onto the ground with loud crash, sizzling loudly, then it rose up again, forming a big face of a wild monster, hovering above them all. Gaara didn't react to it. Shukaku hollered. The blood of Kazekage in the sand itched him. It smelled too weak, too faint. Because now he felt something else. Growing stronger. The poison. The poison, not far away… The danger was growing. It couldn't let it spread. With a loud growl, the sand fell onto the ground, catching the redhead and tugging him.

Gaara went on a cloud of sand without a word of protest. A moment later, both of them were gone. The microphone the three Konohans had on them cracked instantly, Shikaku's voice cracking trough.

'Jiraiya-sama, the Ichibi is moving towards the position Hokage-sama and Kazekage-sama are in. Should be follow?'

'No, stay where you are, we need someone to at least tell us where they are. I'll go.' he looked towards the pile of snow his student's son has been propelled to… But found it empty. A panicked moment left him looking left and right with no idea where the kid might be, the snow already covering any tracks… and by chance caught a flash of orange disappearing into the woods.

'Damn it, Kakashi, find Naruto! Uchiha, with me.' Immediately, he broke into a run directly behind the disaster left by the enraged mass of sand 'What the hell happened with the genjutsu?'

#+#+#+#+#+#

At the howl, Minato turned sharply in the growl's direction, considering if to turn back on his microphone, and then deciding it would be a waste of time. The thing was coming from them, and it was obvious it would.

'Those are the seals.' he said, showing the sequence again and hoping with all his might having them shown twice would be enough for Daichi to get it right. 'As soon as this is turned on the one in your back will automatically react and divert chakra to the other two, just try not to get distracted by how pissy the overweight weaver is right now.' As soon as it felt how aggressive the Bijuu had become, the seal would flare into activity. he turned the redhead around, lifting the back of his clothes and biting his finger and drawing a concentric shape in between both before crossing with through with a line, causing it to flash purple, the lines of charka becoming visible for a fragment of a second. It shouldn't hurt, but as to how it would feel like, exactly… he didn't know. Hopefully, it wouldn't itch.

'Be careful with your chakra, we haven't tested it yet so I haven't placed the last seal to make it go appropriately from the third to the last one, you can only force it.' And the only hope was that Daichi didn't burnt out all of his chakra on the first try and stopped the raccoon's influence long enough to actually wake Gaara from whatever thing it had done to him. Daichi smiled. Minato was such an oblivious guy.

'Don't talk to me like to a rookie.' he said with a snicker that could be used as trademark of his mother, though he didn't saw it in any of his kids yet. Hopefully yet, because that would mean the gene would be lost in-between and he didn't like staring in the mirror too often, even if on the sandy desert the glass was cheap like trash 'And better move out of the way, I'll show you how real ninjas work on the battleground.'

With that, he turned to the side from where a painful howl sounded in an angry growl. And actually, it was all he managed to do as a millisecond later the door, along with the most part of the walls surrounding it, burst out in wooden rain. The dust from the aftertaste lied on a tongue like one of the worst tastes that always told the story about Khamsin. It always came from so many lands you could feel the smell of grapefruits or salty desks from far away seas. This time, he could also taste the finest metallic flavor of blood. The blood that was not shed long ago.

He smiled. The redhead looked at him with blinded eyes, not recognizing him, mighty and straight, a parody of his imperious pose – the same mimics, the same angles, even the same cross of the hands. The monster of the sand above him glared at him with fangs in never-ending, murderous snigger of a sardonic who could never relax his muscles. Daichi slowly rose the thumb to his mouth, biting through the hardened structure of the place where he always bit at, filling his mouth with another sapor of copper.

Golden eyes squinted dangerously. Rih-el-Khamsin, the merciless master of all wind lands, the king of eternity on desert and the ruler of life on oasis. Today the grace of wind god tasted of blood. But Rih-el-Khamsin was also his moniker. He stepped forward with a stubborn smile on his face.

'Come.' And it began. 'Watch me, father…'

'_Daichi.' _

_He froze, stilling into a polite straight manner, still walking beside the man. The buildings slowly slid by his sides, void of life at the glaring light of the sun. The man with dark eyes turned toward him, not changing the pace of walking. _

'_Yes, father?' he asked, still uncertain. The houses were becoming smaller and poorer very quickly – the way becoming more and more fulfilled with sand and leading straight to the open desert. Third was still repairing the gates from the previous attack of Cloud Country on the gates. 'Tell me, what's eternity?' _

_Daichi frowned a little, almost stopping, but as the man looked at him he straightened his face into a polite indifference and resumed the pace. Eternity?... _

'_It's forever.' he said carefully, passing the line where the gates were supposed to be 'It's the time. The never-ending continuum.' The older male snorted sarcastically. Daichi tensed up, feeling he made an idiot out of himself._

'_That's what you said is very pretty.' __said the man with a sneer 'A pretty bunch of empty mighty words that could mean everything and nothing. What I'm asking is what is eternity to you. Not to everyone.' _

_Daichi winced a little at the harsh tone, feeling the snapping in every word, but he didn't give up. What was eternity for him?... He glanced sideways. The dunes were now surrounding them, leaving them uncovered and unprotected over the merciless light from above. He looked back at the dark cloak in front of him._

'_Eternity is heat.' he said, feeling how it signed the memento of carelessness on his uncovered arms 'Eternity is sand. And the sun. Sun never stops its glaring.'_

_The sound of a flesh against flesh echoed through the space like a single shot from a small gun. Daichi fell on the sand, catching his cheek out of instinctive need of protection. It stung._

'_Bullshit.' __said the man with pretentious smile, slowly uncurling the fisted palm that hovered over him 'Everything you say is bullshit. And you have no right at all.'_

_Daichi stared at him from the ground, lost, not understanding what he did wrong and how he did it. One of the worst situations he could be in being alone with his father. But this time the man didn't pressure, only hid his hand into crossing of arms and smiled at him with cutesy._

'_The sun' he said, watching him quickly getting up from his fours and straightening into the pose of a warrior who doesn't care about pain or wounds 'is not eternal. It goes down like a dying animal every day, only to let the moon rule the universe with the cold glare of arctic air. The birth of it is painful and long and yet it survives, but we never know if there will be another day with it around. The sun is not eternal.' _

_He nodded, feeling the copper on his tongue and heat on his back, but not minding it. What father said was important. _

'_Heat also is not.' continued the man, closing his eyes and walking a few steps around him 'It stops once the sun dies in the sea of nothingness under the horizon. And sand…' He stopped, turning to him with a light frown, his smile fading. The small grains crunched under his specialistic high classed shoes like cereal without milk. _

'_There are places on this world without sand, Daichi.' he muttered, letting the light wind blow and cover his face with brown strands for a moment 'There are places covered in water where you don't see ground for days. There are grounds that can't be crushed into stones no matter what kind of technique you use. The sky doesn't hold a piece of ground even if you shot it up there very high. There are places without sand on this world.'_

_Daichi didn't nod this time, watching the older male with slightly opened mouth, mesmerized by his talk, even if he didn't speak of any mighty thing. It was sweet, the charm and class that surrounded him every time he talked about something he thought of important. If anything, he wanted to become a man like that. A man with class, the man with nobility who was respected by everyone, looked up to by every person…_

'_There are places without sand on this world.' repeated the man, taking a handful of the dust and letting it fall down on earth 'Nobody can guarantee that the place we stand upon now wouldn't be drowned in the future or frozen under such metals there would be no way to reach it. Look over there, Daichi.' _

_The hand that let go of the sand steered to the left, pointing at something. The child followed it with his gaze, seeing how in the dunes stood the mighty, now a little damaged sketch of buildings, the stance of a village that protected him and was his first and last fortress. _

'_Home.' he said, and when the man frowned lightly 'People.' he added. The man smiled. _

'_That's right, Daichi. What does this mean to you?' he asked, turning with his mighty profile toward him, the strong jaw lowering in a smile. _

'_Eternity.' __he said, still under the spell of the charming talk that was said to him. The second blow hurt almost just as bad._

'_Wrong.' said the man with the same chintzy smile, once again lowering the fisted hand toward the ground. This time Daichi got up quicker from the fall, though his legs felt a little weak when he tried to stand up strong and proud. The hand landed on his head lightly and turned him toward the village again._

'_How can you see eternity in that, son?' asked the older male in a quiet, sweet voice as he leaned down 'Look at how poor and unfortunate the buildings are from just one attack of Cloud Village! Do you really think they would survive alone under the harsh weather of the desert? No, they would be gone, swapped by a single storm, blown away, scattered, ruined…' _

_Daichi blinked, not daring to nod, but his breath quickened, already seeing with his eyes how the village crumbled down, how it fell away, died. The man looked at him with a light smile, then he pointed at the buildings with his other hand. _

'_And people out there?' he asked, not squinting his eyes as sun glanced at his face with blinding ray 'Look how they struggle, trying to survive each day, how they crawl on their knees for water and how they die out of tiredness and weakness!... No, Daichi, people… people are not eternal. Even Third Kazekage isn't.' _

_He nodded, steering his gaze at the older male who let go of his head, making a light stroke out of a hold and straightened into the mighty pose. For a moment, his face seemed to be almost melancholic, sweet and serene. A charming, charming man._

'_Do you want to know what's eternal?' he asked finally in a little rasped, a little lowered voice, making Daichi's heart thump up in a beat, feeling that the answer that was beyond his understanding was so close now. He looked up, not daring to nod, his nostrils flaring out of quickened breathing. The older male slowly turned to him with that beautiful expression, not losing any feeling of passion when the eyes landed on him. _

'_It's will. Will of the wind.' he muttered kindly, making Daichi's eyes widen. Will?... 'The strongest and most powerful power that could ever exist on this world. The will to never stop fighting and to never be stopped by anything when it comes to hardships and circumstances. The will of the whole country.'_

_The wind blew through the scalding sun, making the sand go up and fall down in little swirls, but he didn't notice. The saliva, so rich with copper now, stuck to the insides to his throats like if it was made of Arabian gum. Finally, he managed to swallow it, at least mostly._

'_Who has it?' he asked, turning to the village where, like ants from affair, people slowly started moving, trying to repair the gates even if the sun was blazing and merciless, making white people turn brown and black people shine like coals. 'Is this Suna? Suna villagers who has it?...'_

_The man smiled lightly with serene expression then he slowly bended down, crouching near him so now he was lower than his head. The large, hardened and scared hands were laid on his shoulders with gentleness that could question his ability as a warrior and firmness that showed it more than anything._

'_No, Daichi.' __he said with a gentle stare, so unsuiting the strong jaw and big posture 'It's not Suna.' _

'_Kazekage-sama then?...' he asked quickly, reminding himself of the young beautiful man who fought admirable battles with iron sand only he could produce. Kekkei Genkai. A little amused chuckle escaped the mouth of the man. _

'_I should beat you for not knowing.' he said. Daichi tensed up, seeing how one of the hands left his shoulders and closed his eyes, expecting another blow. Instead, what he felt, was a light jab in the centre of his chest. He opened his eyes. The index finger was aimed right at him. 'It's you, Daichi.' said the man with a quiet, but now hardened voice 'It's you who carry the will of the sand. The child who will surpass everyone. Sabaku no Daichi, it's you.' _

_The boy looked at him, then at the finger, his expression falling a little. Him?... So not even the great Kazekage-sama… but him?..._

'_But I don't feel eternal at all.' __he said in a weak tone, feeling that he disappointed the man once again. But no strip of expression fell from the serene look of the eyes, very much like his own, looking at him with gentleness he knew that was aimed only at him and his mother. _

'_Don't worry about it, Daichi.' __he said quietly 'Someday, you will.'_

_The smile. And the light kiss on the top of the forehead, the sign of highest care on property. 'The child of mine will.' _

Daichi smiled at the figure retreating slowly into the depths of the memory. The first seal glinted on his skin with needless that pierced his skin and tore inside his chakra circulatory system, making him feel cold unease and the power he didn't want nor his body didn't absorb. It felt almost… unreal. Eternity. He smiled at the monster as it fell down on him with tons of the sand, roaring through the space and broken walls.

'Activate!' And then, it blew away.

A mere luck. But now he felt stronger than ever. Even if he knew, that luck didn't happen twice at the same time.

'You foolish little human…' murmured with a wild growl the monster above him with a maddening hiss. The child hunched in the position, looking now more like a grotesque shaped doll that was only put into the imitation of Daichi's might posture. The saffron haired man snickered widely again.

'Two humans.' he said in a light tone. Then he turned to look at the blonde 'Right, Minato?'

The blood dripped from his finger like small pearls out from a broken suitcase, but he didn't mind it. Now he knew, he knew that by his blood, by his will, he was carrying out the volition of everything he ever believed in. Weren't there three of us…? For a moment he was lost. He didn't exactly know where he was as much as when. Could it really have been over ten years since the last time they were like this, only the question was wrong without Kushina there trying to butt in between them, because she hated being left out as much as Daichi did and… Could it really be five years since she'd been added to that stone, to that nightmarish, laughable list of names that would erase over time-

'I'm not sure.' he said, time finally colliding back into its normal curse, reacting, bubbling forward with the speed of the adrenaline pumping in his veins. 'I always was told you are more of a demon of the sands, Daichi-kun. Please look forward now, though, It's not polite to ignore overweight animals when they want to eat you alive.' _Don't get cocky now, you idiot. You've been hurt enough by this as it is._

Daichi only smiled at that, sacrificing another half of a second to appreciate the grateful movement of yellow thunder moving through the rampaging sand. Beautiful. Every movement. Every curve on the clothes. That how Minato was. Whole incredibly beautiful. A moment later, he made a jump and two somersaults in the air, barely avoiding the contact with enraged background as it reached out for his ankles, wanting to immobilize him in the place. 'I will make you crawl, human.' It hissed at him, as the big head turned upwards, flashing fangs and golden pupils at him. He snickered. 'I'd like to see you try!' he shouted back, feeling the second flash on his back lifting as he started drawing seal on the back of his right hand.

'You big ugly raccoon-'

The sneer was all he saw, before the sudden blow of an air came out from wide pharynx, aiming right at him and making him loose the sight. He snickered. Damned kazekage robe. Always got on his way. With one move he added another line to the seal, getting out one hand from the sleeve and discard off the cloth. But before he had chance to take it off completely, a hard fist of sand tore the through it, nailing him on the forehead and knocking against it as it crushed the air. A millimeters close. He caught the air in his mouth to curse, but then the force blew him backward and made him land on the wall with unpleasant crack, from where he had to jump away to not get completely engulfed by dust. One more line.

Thankfully, now he had enough of blood running down from his forehead and he didn't have to abuse his finger anymore. Maybe that was better. One day, to get to the blood, he will have to bite to the bone. If anything, he wanted to avoid doing that at least today. With quick movements and two maddening runs to sides, almost tumbling from another sandy hurricane, he finally ended the seal on the right hand. Just in time. The whites of eyes of the redhead child observed him as he jumped off the wall with a frown, still looking like a puppet that got cut off from two main strings, but not without vigilance. He smiled at him. His eyes widened.

'Father.' he whispered, then he hunched more, like if one more string got loose. For a moment. Just enough to make the sand fall down on earth in a maddening sizzle, letting him catch a breath. Great. Now he could stand on the ground with two feet. And just when he did, the red head rose, glaring at him like if he had just stepped on his own personal childish toes.

Shit.

'Mother!...' hollered Gaara as he rose his left hand to clasp it over his bloodied right one.

'Youuu!...'

What's happened after was hard to tell in words.

The whites of eyes of the redhead child observed him as he jumped off the wall with a frown, still looking like a puppet that got cut off from two main strings, but not without vigilance. He smiled at him. His eyes widened.

Nothing. That was first word that came to his mind. Not an explosion. Not effective strand of chakra straining the sand. Not massive amount of water flooding the whole Konoha. Just… nothing. He looked as his hands as the blood dripped from between them on the ground where the sand caught it greedily and listened absent-mindedly to a doubled-echoing cackle, both of a monster and a child that steered it. Only the second one was not a cackle. It was a hiccup. A hiccup of a scream. He looked up, catching the scrunched, angered face of a madness. And faintly remembered the face of the blonde he could never forget, muttering something like-

'No…'

-through pale lips. Then the sand rushed at him with speed that couldn't be matched or tamed. Daichi once again steered his hands at it, pressing with all his might against the seal, steering his power through it, but it seemed to be blocked, not responding to his call. With a curse, he jumped back three steps only to see that he was too slow and that the angered face of Gaara was near his now and…

'Oh gods.'

It was all he managed to say. With a scream that got choked before it came, Sabaku no Daichi got eaten by sand. And the silence fell.

'Victory.' murmured the monster, forming up the face of sardonic raccoon that had everything for nothing and nothing for even less. The redhead let out another angry scream, hanging in the mimic of his father's pose like a broken doll.

That was it.

'Daichi!' That stupid, smug idiot, he'd just told him to pay attention to the fight and not get too cocky, they had never even tested the seals before! He'd tried to rush there but there hadn't been time, after the last attack he'd been too far away to get to the redhead in time. He'd tried- he could have made it if he'd had two more seconds. But when you were a ninja, a single second made all the difference.

'Let go of him!' How long until the pressure killed him? Sand coffin, he'd been told, Daichi could hold his breath but even so, if the thing wanted him dead he'd just crush him inside its giant stomach or wherever Dai was, if he'd only had Kakashi here to tell him where the redhead was he would at least been able to try something, but as it was if he attacked he might kill him himself with chidori or even exploding tags. 'Gaara, if you hurt Daichi-'

The redhead twitched, like if someone has pressed the button then turned his head to the blond. He knew that smell. He knew it. He remembered it. He relaxed against the sand which didn't change the structure for one bit and smiled lightly toward him.

'Mother.'

She was there. She was. He knew she would come. Now he was calm. And with one last smile, he disappeared into the hole that immediately got covered by sand, leaving no sign of him outside. 'Sabaku Kyuu.' Muttered the voice, echoing from every grain of sand, loud and childish at the same time, everywhere and nowhere at all 'Sand Coffin.'

'The Fox.'

Daichi once again steered his hands at it, pressing with all his might against the seal, steering his power through it, but it seemed to be blocked, not responding to his call. With a curse, he jumped back three steps only to see that he was too slow and that the angered face of Gaara was near his now and…

'Oh gods.' Strong hands grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and the both of them disappeared in a puff of smoke. Minato hadn't chosen this area beforehand with no reason. And he hadn't been idle through the days the Kazekage had been in bed. A moment later, an explosion echoed through the snowy landscape. Thankfully the snow would help dampen the noise, he just hoped the Suna nins were doing their job and keeping what came out of the area to a minimal. 'Don't ever do that again, imbecile.' the blond hissed in the redhead's ear, pulling the other close not exactly in a hug as much as a choke hold. With how small the branch they were precariously sitting in, one could almost say it was for his own good. Dozens of meters below, the raccoon shrieked its disapproval, reminding the blonde now was not the time. 'How is your chakra?'

Daichi held his breath for a moment. He could have sworn he was about to be swallowed by great amounts of sands and he was ready for an impact and not for such change of events. But that was more than okay with him. He let go of a breath, not fighting with the choking hold.

'The seal.' he muttered through the arid lips 'The seal is not responding for my chakra.'

Minato nearly smacked him in the head for that answer. Unfortunately, that would have made a lot of noise considering how empty the area was.

'I told you that could happen, you are forcing it to work in ways your chakra isn't usually channeled.' he said with more calm that he probably was really feeling. 'The first one worked as it should, just figure out the right amount and use it.' The only question was how many tries did they have before Daichi ran out of chakra. Uncalculated amounts provably wasted a lot more than normal and well measured jutsu. Of course he had enough to spare, but how much… Leaning down, he bit down on the older man's neck, hard enough to jolt him a bit. 'Just concentrate on not getting skinned alive, Kazekage-sama. That would mean too much paperwork.'

Daichi jumped lightly, completely not expecting to feel pain in that tender area, then he relaxed a bit, feeling how much strain it made him feel in his neck. Despite it being a clear act of warning, it felt almost…

…but now it was not the time to think about such. He closed his eyes lazily, smiling a little into the sky as another roar boomed through the air, much closer now than he would have liked.

'Oh, I wouldn't want to leave you with such a burden Mi-na-to-kun…' he murmured, moving one of his hand to stroke the back side of the palm of the blond that held onto him 'Just don't get in the way, or I would kill you dead for scratching that prude face of yours, Hokage-sama.'

With that, he turned his head to the side, kissing the shining cold piece of metal on the blonde's temple, and with silent 'thank you', he vanished in the whirlwind of sand. Now it was time to fight for real.

He tried to measure the right amount even through the teleportation, the seal glinting for a moment with new, unknown sensation of pushing on his skin, but it was gone as he landed on the ground, a few good meters beside the great mountain of sand.

The black-gold eyes immediately showed up on the back of it, looking at him with a gasp and then a sardonic smile of so many fangs he couldn't remember any decent animal having and it lunged at him with maddening laughter. This time he didn't wait for the face of Gaara to show up – one hand clasped on the another, pushing onto the seal with force and once again meeting mental closed door. With tensed up muscles he almost dug his fingers into the seal on the other palm, with no effect. The chakra he was trying to channel there was simply diffusing into air, not meeting up with a lock that could let it channel further. With a curse he teleported again, barely missing a sharp clawed paw aimed at him and jumped once again on the back side of the monster.

But a second after another claw fled toward him, making him jump into teleporting technique, only to hit him on his shoulder in the place where he moved right then. Damn it. It was almost like if the monster knew where he was going to teleport. He tried channeling his chakra against the seal one more time while teleporting and he caught again the glimpse of shine, but it disappeared just when he landed firmly on his feet. And then the claw hit him on tight, tearing the pants that were too expensive and the skin that didn't deserve another scar there. Not that he had something against light scaring of such sort – this would be the most beautiful make up once it would heal, the makeup Shukaku made on him itself. If he would ever get out of it alive, that was.

He teleported again into other three places, meeting up with the same problems, with each time getting one more scratch on the same tight. Just when he jumped up to miss the fifth one, he looked into the golden eyes. They were squinted in the pure pleasure as the tail was wagging lazily behind the big amount of sand. The redhead, that showed up on its forehead lied upside down, bended against bend of his spine and… cackled. It was not him escaping the monster. It was the beast allowing him escape. He was not being barely missed. He was slowly killed with sarcastic wounds. Shukaku a l l o w w e d him to teleport. It seemed he had no choice. He had to sacrifice some of his chakra.

He jumped into the air into another teleporting technique, leaving the sand behind him and shouted: 'Tajiuu Suna Bunshin no Jutsu!' Once he stepped onto the ground, one hundredth and fifty other pairs of legs landed on the ground with him. This time, the claw hit the tight of the bunshin that stood three personas on the left on him. There. That was it. He snickered along with other one hundredth and fifty mouths.

'What are you gonna do now, Shukaku?' he asked with voice echoing through many other of him and he lifted his hands once again. If not him, then at least one of his clones should grab what was it all about. That would be more than enough. 'Scatter!'

And without hesitance one hundredth and fifty Kazekages had fled the place, jumping through the air, hiding into the ground and running around the mountain of the sand with high speed.

But much to his dismay, the redhead didn't stop the cackling. More, the sand smiled wider and rose above the ground, observing all clones with many eyes. As far as he could notice, there was at least one per person. He also had one piercing him with golden gaze. He tsked.

'This is fun!' said the child above them all, lowering his head. If he didn't know, he'd thought Gaara was playing with his teddy now 'If only I had my sand now…'

He frowned at the statement, standing firmly on the ground and moving along with some clones which already made the gesture of trying to push against the seal. As far as he could see, with no effect. Even if he made the amount bigger and smaller it didn't simply catch on, vanishing into the air. What was he doing wrong? Minato said that he'd have to measure the amount but it seemed it was a completely wrongly thought up idea…

'Mugen' was murmured suddenly above him with a booming voice, as all eyes has turned into the smiling mouths. He gasped and jumped back, catching onto anything he could use as a body swapping technique. With the corner of an eye he saw that some of his clones also made such moves, other still being oblivious to what was happening 'Sajin Daitoppa!'

And then, with one strong gasp of an air, the wind mixed with sand blew from Shukaku. Practically everywhere. He felt the piece of wood he grabbed get sliced off in front like with a hard knife and gasped as the sand hit his not fully teleported body. Thankfully, only for a moment. Or he would have no legs after all. He landed on one tree, gathering all images and experiences of the clones that vanished in the big hurricane, watching the battleground after the attack. Only a few clones remained, still trying to act against the seal that kept on being closed shut.

'Push!' commanded one clone 'Push with all your might!'

'We're doing that!'

'This hurts!'

'Push!'

'Look out!' Daichi gasped as the rest of the clones was pushed into the ground by a big tail, experiencing the fracturing of bones all at once. No use. He gathered the memories.

Highest amounts of chakra are no use. One handed chakra didn't succeed. Chakra in fingers was not doing anything. Adding own blood also made it impossible. And amounts needed to made dragon of the sands didn't work also. Some clones had the same ideas. It was simple a waste of chakra. Again, the same idea. This time readjusting the hands. Didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't work. Nothing worked. Gods!...

Minato stared at the older man for a moment, still unable to wrap his mind around the fact Daichi could be this affectionate, or even want to be, something deep, dark and provably red-eyed purring approval and curling around in glee at the knowledge. Who else for? No one, no one) Then he turned on the communicator.

'A little help would be appreciated.' he said, looking down through the thick foliage and shaking his head at the lack of visibility. Or maybe it was the fact the forest was now filled to the brim with lots of Daichis.

Oh, he was going to kill the idiot. So much for not wasting chakra.

'If you wanted help you shouldn't have hidden yourself like this, brat.' Ws the scathing reply from the older man. "Thank you for rigging the place up with traps without letting me know, by the way, I really appreciated the exploding tag sticking to my-' "Ah, you'll have to forgive me, sensei, I just thought that a man so dedicated to research as yourself wouldn't have a problem with seeing a few traps, eyes of an artists and all-' he pulled away from the microphone to avoid getting temporarily deafened. "Protect Kazekage-sama.' Itachi and Kakashi might be able to tell the right one from the rest. An if not, with protecting the clone it would be enough for Dai to swap himself with it. If he had time for it.

With that he jumped down the tree as well, throwing Kunai ridden with exploding tags to the area where the small form of the redhead could be seen. He knew the sand would protect the child, but it was also one of its bigger weaknesses, so he had no option but to exploit it. Anything that bought a little time. Jiraiya wanted to contact Kakashi and see if he had found Naruto yet, but now that Minato was back on the radio, he couldn't do that without hopelessly distracting his student. "You heard the Hokage. Let's see what those eyes of yours can do, Uchiha.'

Itachi nodded at the f I n a l l y given permission to move on his own pace and he moved forward, leaving the white-haired man alone to fight with the traps he could easily see through and avoid with a skill. A moments later, he vanished from the see sight of them all. Inside the hidden area, Daichi shook. The memories were coming one by one, all filled with pain and wounds that he had to welcome like if they were happening to him and the mental hitting made him almost blind to the reality. Thankfully, something exploded not far away from him, so that had to be Minato, trying to do his job. Probably thankfully to that he was still alive.

He closed his eyes. A broken rib – changing the ways of bending arms didn't work. Torn legs – putting out the chakra didn't work. Beheaded – and also again readjusting the elbows was no use. He cursed under his breath. There were no good ideas, no good amounts of thinking, none, no-… If the pushing doesn't work… why not trying a pull?... He jerked at the thought. Which clone made it?... It seemed like an afterthought of death that fell upon it, not even using the idea… but it seemed like worth a try. He clasped one hand on the other, once again pushing the chakra against the seal out of a habit, then, with one fierce move, he turned the channeling backward. C r a c k.

A crack made of three cracks. At first, he didn't know what cracked louder. But then, every one of them sounded different and just as loud.

First, the crack on his shirt. The net of his shirt and the black material of his blouse just tore audibly loud, flying away from him like if it was made of toilet paper, burning onto the wind. His teeth clattered at the cold outside, feeling how even his earrings crunched, but didn't change the pose. Then his skin flashed, crawled and tightened as the power pulled on it, once again hammering through his chakra circulatory system, covering him in heat that bled through his back, making the snow from under his feet melt and cover him in mist.

Second, the ground under his feet. It cracked once, the twice, thrice, like if his weight doubled, then double-doubled. He steered his hand through the mist at the place where the sand could be, though he barely could see from mist now. Thankfully, his skin started glowing now, so he had much better situation in this dark, winter day.

And third, it was Gaara. The spine of his cracked like if someone has broke it, making him fall limp in his position, losing the cross of the hands and changing the cackle into silence, like if someone had cut it with a knife. The monster stilled, looking at nothing in particular, then it also leaned down limp. A moment later, the blank, yellowish eyes had flashed the purest gold, making him roar in delight.

'Free!' he howled, making the ground shake beneath the feet that formed under the sandy body 'Finally I am completely free!'

Then he turned toward the source of the power, smiling in the sweetest of the smile it could ever had. Which meant vicious and filled with sweetened arsenic.

'Thanks to you, insect.' it purred almost cat-like, then the fangs lowered a bit, making the hole on the face widen in a big grin 'Thanks to you… Father.' The mist covering Daichi finally started to lift. Now he could finally see. He blinked, breathing heavily, as the power accumulating in his hands started weighting him down, finally explaining the crack beneath his feet. He barely glanced sideways, but he knew his arms and neck were now covered in many different lines, that shone in the dim winter light with violetish red, burning like if he dipped them in acid. And yet, it didn't hurt his skin one a bit.

When he rose his eyes, his pupils flashed lilac.

'Save your thanks for yourself, monster.' he said, lifting his hands up 'It's the last thing I want from you.' The monster cackled.

'Thanks for permission, Father.' it muttered, then it leaned even more down 'Now I don't have to kill you last!' And with that, the whole mass of sand rushed at him all at once. One step, two steps three- Now!

'Second seal!' he shouted, aiming directly at the opened phynax of Shukaku going right at him 'Activate!'


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven: Demons of the past

'Thanks for permission, Father.' it muttered, then it leaned even more down 'Now I don't have to kill you last!' And with that, the whole mass of sand rushed at Daichi all at once. One step, two steps three- Now!

'Second seal!' he shouted, aiming directly at the opened phynax of Shukaku going right at him 'Activate!' And just when the world vanished from his eyes as the fangs closed around him, the power shook his body and the whole monster flew away. Literally flew. Like if it exploded from the inside. Into every direction.

He tsked. He never expected to have the power of nuclear bomb in his hands for once in his life. The surprises of everyday. But that… was still not enough. The sand that flew away sizzled madly, catching the falling limp body of Gaara just a few centimeters above the ground and spiked up high above, making a dusty, brown cloud above them all. Shukaku was still alive. And fighting.

'You foolish worm!...' howled the heavens like if the gods of the wind spoke from it. And just like then, the wind suddenly started gathering up, strengthening, making bigger and bigger stones shake and dance on the ground… Daichi's eyes widened. Oh no. _Renkuudan Suna no Ame_. Rain of the Sands filled with chakra. That wouldn't end good.

He only managed to turn to Minato who seemed to be hidden, but no amount of hidings could protect from the needles from the sky. And then the rain fell. 'Die!' growled the raged voice of Shukaku as it itself started pounding on the ground, changing into hard stones that could break through houses and basement's shelters. Without a word he pushed against it with his hands, feeling how his hands jerked with power pulled against the sky rain, making it miss him, but as far he could see, the shelter he made couldn't reach the forest. He tried to turn his head to see, but the burning skin clicked dangerously, like if it was about to tear at the move of his neck, so he concentrated on looking up, against the rain. And it was so much… so much of it!...

When it finally fell on the ground, the silence fell. He felt his back itching. The chakra he used, brushed against the lines on the third and the last seal, making it glint, but not for once covering it all. He knew it happened only because he made such a sudden jerk against it, as the channeling to it, being not blocked, was also made of lines that seemed to be just dispersing chakra on many different sides, working on his hands, legs, neck, head… Hopefully, not to overload it with strength. He lowered his arms, not letting go of the seal as the sand just kept sizzling on the ground, not doing anything. He was afraid to turn around to see what's happened there. Oh gods, no. No, no, no, no…

And just when he was about to let go of the seal to run to the side of the forest, a black winged bird flew near his cheek, turning into a black smoke, disappearing into the air.

'Hokage-sama saved.' muttered the droning, hushed voice of a teen behind him 'Kazekage-sama not hurt. I see the host. Over.'

'Well done, Itachi.' Shikaku's voice rang through the net. 'Hizashi says the host and Bijuu 's charka system has been effectively separated. The host seems to be fine.'

'Great.' Minato rubbed his head where the biggest block had hit him. That was gonna need stitched. And his brain still clattered. Other than that he'd managed to teleport to the highest point where the debris and sand falling was minimized. Besides some stinging scrapes and burns and more than a couple bruises, he was just fine. 'What about the Bijuu?'

'Fat. Angry. All over the place.'

He looked down at the sizzling sand, feeling a little sick at the way the thing writhed all over the snow. Snow everywhere… Using another exploding tag, he crushed another tree, causing the snow accumulated on it to fall directly on top of the glaring golden eye.

'I told you we could take care of you, badger.' He leaned back on the tree as if this were nothing but a show for him to go through. 'Do you want to know why we did you the favor of separating you from Gaara-sama…?'

The eye has closed, then opened just in front of Minato, along with the smile beneath it, wide, curled upwards…

'You did separate me from the host?...' it asked in a quiet, purr-like voice. A few meters from him, the limp body of the redhead tensed up and budged. And then, it finally rose from the ground, readjusting the pose of mighty Kazekage in his best attitude. Which meant cross handed and straight. 'I think not.' And, without losing a smile to such a depressing revelation, it cackled as the green eyes finally opened, looking at everything with curiosity of a child that has only woke up from a dream.

'Father?...' Daichi turned to the redhead sharply, looking back into the pupil-less eyes, that seemed to… yes, they recognized him. Just as he stood before him.

'Why do you look so strange?...' asked the child. Then with a gasp it caught its own head, holding onto it like if he was trying to keep it from exploding and hunched limp as the beast started once again forming the great form above him.

'You stupid little fools.' Boomed the monster, smiling at them from above as all eyes and mouths on the ground disappeared 'I lied about that and you believed in that? Thank you, thank you for a show, insects!'

Minato's eyes went to the kid, a frown taking its place on his roughened, handsome features. But when he looked back at the demon, his eyes were clear and calm.

'That's irrelevant.' The blond said calmly. 'Just a little more complicated, but if I could deal with Nine tails… what a one tailed monster like you in comparison?' Finally… whatever spell he'd had on Daichi's son was gone. How much chakra did Dai have left…?

'Is that so.' The golden eyes squinted, waging the tail behind it as it started forming from the rest of the sands. Then they turned toward the other man, who was already in position accumulating the chakra, but he was all frowning and panting. Not much chakra left for anything he wanted to do. Foolish little human. He turned to the blonde again. 'Is that so' it repeated, catching the body of the redhead in the big paw and shaking it off from the sand that immediately flew back to the rest of the blue-brown skin. Green eyes opened once again. 'Then how about you fighting me now. You can't do anything against me. Not a damn little thing.'

With that, he closed the paw around the redhead, who looked at it with confusion that bled quickly into the fear. He smiled at it, not leaving a little piece for air to come through and shot a lazy smile toward all people standing on the grounds. 'Sabaku Kyuu.'

Gaara screamed.

'With pleasure, weaver!' the blond grinned at him, all teeth and maddened expression, hands suddenly igniting in crackles of white-blue charka. 'How would you like going back into a kettle?'

'Suiton: Teppōdama no Jutsu!' The whole paw of the creature was torn off as a ball of water tore at it at high speed, at the same instant that the Hokage jumped off the tree and dive for the one tail, slamming both hands enveloped in concentrated chidori wrist deep into what the thing's eye were.

He immediately pulled back, but his right wrist had been caught before and even though it wasn't broken, it hurt. Sprained. Maybe worse. Actually, it hurt a lot. Pain. Ow, ow. He didn't look at his hand. The skin felt raw, and that provably meant it was. He'd be lucky if he managed to get seals done with it.

'Are you planning to make a career out of fighting tailed beasts, brat?' As if the forest hadn't had enough of a beating, the massive form of Gamabunta crushed the remaining trees that were scattered in the destroyed landscape.

'Well, kage-ing has become so dull as of late…' His eyes moved momentarily towards the toad sage, who had retrieved the redhead from the momentarily stunned sand and was standing at an appropriate distance.

The redhead stirred in the white-haired man's arms, gazing at him with green eyes. The toad sage really looked stunning from that position. Then, without a warning, he limped and jumped at his face and torso, sticking to it and tearing at it as he moved into every direction. Shukaku smiled from affair, slowly retrieving his lost eyes from the sand.

'Bushin.' it muttered, and waged the tail suddenly at the blond, not even looking at him 'You naïve little humans, wanting to attack me with a little electricity and water. Pathetic.'

The redhead was nowhere to be found.

'Katon: Gamayu Endan!' doing the seals with his left hand, Minato jumped on top of the vermillion frog as it spat the rapidly ignition oil and bathed the raccoon's face on flames. The communicator cracked to life. 'Itachi, give Kazekage-sama a soldier's pill!'

Shikaku's voice came through.

'No.' The Hokage replied immediately, actually cutting the jutsu.

'It will restore his chakra.'

'It'll be too much strain on it.' By it, he meant his heart, of course. He couldn't specify, however, because he needed his mouth to work the jutsu again, larger than before as the first layer of glass started shattering under the pressure.

'Hizashi.' Jiraiya's voice came through the communicator, slightly out of breath. The fucking… Thing on his face! It had been near impossible to get off, only concentrating chakra on his skin and pushing it back with enough force so he could dose it in flames… And now his beautiful face was covered in sand burns! 'Where is the host?'

'The host… the host is…' creaked the communicator with nervous voice as the owner shook on the wind from affair, observing through veined eyes the whole mass of sand that seemed to gain on the chakra paths with every minute. After blowing it to bits for the second time it seemed to restructurize and now, even for him, a young skilled warrior it was hard to make out where and if actually anywhere could the host be 'The host… the host… ah, Hokage-sama, look out!'

'Renkuudan!' A moment later the big ball of fire had suddenly turned its course, flying directly onto Gama Bunta and its owners, soaking them into already burning oil with a strong blow of chakrafied wind.

'Hahaha!' echoed the loud booming cackle of the beast as it shook with laughter, observing the frog getting cooked over its own jutsu 'Today's meal surely was overcooked!'

'No!' shouted Daichi seeing how unfortunate it turned out for the blond and his sensei. Gods, why did he got in the way? He told him to stay out of this!... 'Leave them alone, Shukaku! It's me you're supposed to fight with!'

Golden eyes flashed from above, looking at the ground. Daichi gritted his teeth, trying to channel the chakra to the third seal, but barely improving on anything he already did. Even sharp pulling on his chakra circulatory system made his back only sting more, but also not for long. After a moment of trying to hold it up, the thing got back to the starting ground. Shukaku smiled lazily.

'You' it said almost with pleasure, lowering itself to the ground. Daichi jumped to the side, barely missing the big shard of the glass falling directly on his head damned monster. Shukaku didn't even notice it happening, only lowered himself to the ground so much the big face of it was staring at him like the big oversized lights of the giant truck.

'You' it repeated, squinting them with delight as he tried to push at the third seal again, feeling that he grasped the right way to channel the chakra already, but still couldn't pump enough chakra through. His legs felt so heavy 'You're just funny to play with. Want to see something even funnier?'

Daichi budged, breathing in and out, still pressing against himself, and not getting anything by that. He needed great amounts of chakra to do such a complicated seal, the amounts he had already used.

'Yes.' he muttered, trying to play on time, even if he knew that there was nothing funny in whatever the monster was trying to do. Shukaku closed the mouth, smiling at him. Almost gently. Then it reached down, burying the big paw into the already dusted and crushed mud, turning it into the sand. What was that supposed to be?...

'Those little fools think I have the brat hidden somewhere In me' muttered Shukaku, watching Daichi with pleasure as it slowly moved the paw upwards 'But he was all the time just beneath me…' And with that, the limp figure of the redhead had came to the surface.

'Gaara.' breathed Daichi out despite himself, for a moment losing the contact with the third seal. Dark rimmed eyes twitched and fluttered, opening wide, looking at him with usual dim green…

'Father?...' he muttered drowsily, like if he had just only woke up, not recognizing his surroundings at all 'What's happened?... Where's teddy?...' Daichi frowned, then scowled, seeing how the kid had turned around, looking at his surroundings with innocent curiosity. So real. So almost real. With a frown, he got back to pushing against the channels of the third seal again.

'You won't fool me.' he said in a dark, angered tone, making the kid look at him with surprise 'That's a bunshin. Only less fake.'

'Oh, really?' purred the beast, squinting its eyes, then it suddenly spilled on the ground into a big dune, starting to surround the child. Gaara looked at it, not scared, but confused 'Then say goodbye to father, brat…'

'But… ow-!' uttered Gaara, looking at the sand around his ankles going upwards and curling sharply around his hand. Daichi's eyes widened. Blood. There was blood coming from this hand 'Aaagghhh! Blood! My blood! It huurtsss!'

Shit. That was a real Gaara. Daichi gasped, seeing as the sand sizzled lazily, licking off the blood from a wound like treat, but doing nothing to stop it. The seal!... He couldn't deconcentrate, he had to made the seal work!... Now! He pushed against it, the pulled with the same effect, steering his hands at the moving dune, but once again it flashed faintly just at the beginnings and switched out.

No use. No use at all!...

'Did it already? Good.' muttered the sand, lazily, then the head of the beast rose upwards from it, making the sand rise up quickly, covering the redheads knees, tights, hips… Daichi hopelessly pushed against the seal one more time, but he was too distracted to actually control himself at all. And the more he did it, the more weak his legs became. And he couldn't… he couldn't if he wanted to… 'Goodbye, Gaara.'

'No… no… no, it hurts, mother!...' squeaked the redhead, looking at the sand with. Daichi breathed in and out quickly, looking at his own hands, glowing in that violetish red light, but not giving him any more power than he did. If he used it… if he used the power of the second seal one more time… he would be able to blow the sand out and free the kid from it… but then… but then he would have no power… no power to use the third seal!...

He looked up, feeling torn and lost as the redhead screamed for his mother to stop, knowing very well what to do. With all his might he pushed against his hands one more time…

…only in vain… The green eyes turned to him…

'Father!' it squeaked at him, frightened, lost, alone…

…his child… And he hated the world. So it could as well go to hell.

'Gaara!' he shouted, letting go of the second seal, feeling how weak his legs became as he moved them forward 'Don't move, wait for me!...'

The large toad used two well placed balls of water not to counter the attack as much as take it off course, then taken the blunt of the damage, covering Minato from the attack and catching it with his own skin and clothing that quickly absorbed the burning substance.

'Gamabunta!'

'I think… We might have different ideas of what entertainment amounts to, Minato-kun.' the frog gritted as it rid itself from the gi it wore, leaving it in the bandages wrapped around it's midsection and burned patched of skin. The smell of burnt frog was overpowering.

'Can you still fight?' Minato quickly shed his ruined jacket, half-heartedly mourning it's loss as he was also left in basic jounin uniform.

'Don't insult me, brat.' the toad puffed some smoke out of its nostrils. 'It'll take more than that to keep me down.' Minato tried to analyze what to do, short of activating the few remaining exploding tags that would bug maybe two or three seconds, so what else could they do, and where the hell was Kakashi-kun?

'Gaara! Don't move, wait for me!...'

'Daichi, don't!' And of course, he did. Almost without any chakra left and with no chance of doing anything in his state he still did, and he was so much like her, always doing the thing they shouldn't just because they couldn't think with their heads, just to put themselves in danger, in danger of him losing them, and now they should have been three and weren't anymore EXACTLY BECAUSE OF THIS! So he moved. Fast.

Another set of seals already done, ignoring the pain and his hand complaining at being forced like that, then shrieking in agony when the chakra concentrated on it. He landed on the sanded body and rushed down it with enough velocity the sand couldn't catch him, dipping down the trendil being used to clutch the child.

'Minato?' The toad cursed, before opening its mouth. 'Suiton: Teppōdama no Jutsu!'

'Minato!' Copying the seal, Jiraiya rushed forward. The hokage dipped around it to avoid being skinned alive and landed on the rough surface, grinning dementedly at the golden-eyed creature as it drew back a fist where chakra gathered strangely.

'Rasengan!'

And smashed it right on its face.

Fwosh. That was what all it took. Not a massive push of air from big phynax, not blow of chakra from strange claws, even not a coffin made of sand. A simple punch with half hardened hand that punched the blond through the jaw that seemed to be almost a gentle push, if it wasn't for this sickening sound of bones cracking. Itachi watched the fall of his Hokage stuck in place and mesmerized. He fell like if he was a supernatural, completely inhuman doll, an angel made only of feathers. Could that really be happening?...

And even if he remembered that no, no it couldn't, because the Fourth Hokage fought against the strongest and always won, known as tamer of everything dangerous, tamed famous Kushina and had the dangerous Kazekage of Sands under his thumb, heck, he even fought against the Kyuubi and won, so no, no it couldn't… And yet, he knew very well, since he heard the sickening crack and heavy thud on earth that there was no way the man would get up now. His chakra system was completely shut off, pointing at the unconsciousness which could, in the worst cause, lead to death. But how… how could have that happened?...

'Minatooo!' he heard and saw as completely panicked Kazekage left his son in the middle of battleground and, not even looking where the white-haired man added the next rasengan and flew away in accompaniamence of enraged roar of the beast, started running toward the unmoving body. That was completely scandalous of Kazekage, the first man in the country, but as far as he saw, it seemed that he was unable to concentrate as long as Hokage also fought somewhere nearby. He looked up. The monster didn't seem to be amused. At all.

It seemed, that, despite being underage and unsuited for the action, he had to move from the spot. Even if he was told to intervene in the completely hopeless situation. Well, he didn't know like them, but for him it started to seem to look like hopeless situation. So, not looking at the rules anymore, Itachi Uchiha sprung out from the hiding, running toward the closest place where he could help. Which meant the pair on the ground. And of course, he was immediately spotted by the beast.

'You vermins, now you're multiplying?...' it roared in angry growl, and shot the little bombs toward him in packages. It was not an easy task, and it probably wouldn't end so well if it wasn't for Gama Bunta who finally decided to step into the fight alone, along with his katana that was shining bright with fire.

'Run, kid.' he said simply, taking the pose of the old masters of weapons 'I'll be the one to take care of that thing, possibly the best I can.'

Itachi nodded, not really caring to listen to the voice of booming laughter of Shukaku that held more anger than laughter and he kept moving forward. And what a painful run it was. With every clash above him, the earth seemed to shake and move him on his knees. He didn't want to think how a little kid of Gaara's age could feel that, much less someone who probably had something broken, like Jiraiya. The old man was still available to sense, but completely unmoving from his side. Probably had a very unfortunate landing.

'Hokage-sama!... Kazekage-sama!...' he breathed, when he finally reached the pair, that seemed to lay unmoving, completely oblivious to the fact that the world around them shook like mad. At least, for Minato it was. When it came to the other man, on the closer inspection he seemed to shake uncontrollably, like if he lost the rest of his mind. Because he seemed to be crying, and that was madness. No ninja was allowed to cry. And especially not a kage. 'Are you all right?...'

The saffron haired man budged like If he kicked him, then he rose his head slowly, unaware of another shake that made the sand around them swirl and cover their heads with dust as one leg of the toad landed a little too close for safety. Itachi held his breath for a moment, noticing shining violet eyes and the strange glassy glinting on the skin that from the closer view seemed to look like if Kazekage was covered in ice. Amazing. And very sane. Kazekage of the Sands was not crying.

But then, he was holding Hokage like if he was his beloved child (outrageous!) if not lover (scandalous!) and had such a painful expression that it could be almost taken as if he was crying. Maybe he was. Crying to the inside. Kages were creatures of another world after all. They could develop things no normal human could achieve.

Jiraiya was indeed conscious, but he'd decided to retreat for now. He'd been the one to summon Gamabunta, and if he blacked out, their best shot at protection would be gone as well. Minato apparently was out of commission for the time being, if not dead, and the idiot of the Kazekage had wasted the opportunity of rescuing his son in favor to go tend to his ex teammate. The only thing that was more or less consoling by now was how much was Minato going to smack him for it.

'Nara.'

'Jiraiya-sama!' If he didn't know better, he'd say Shikaku nearly died from relief at hearing his voice. Must be an impression, though, everyone knew hysterical Nara's were a genetic aberration and provably fed to the deer at birth. 'What's happened?'

'A giant raccoon made of sand.' he deadpanned, spitting some blood in the snow and forcing himself back into knees that felt like if they had been made out of cotton. 'Any news on Kakashi?'

'None… should we call reinforcements?'

That didn't sound bad at all. In fact, it sounded brilliant, weren't it for the fact it would probably end up with Minato thrown out of his charge and possibly be branded a traitor nin, if not executed… not to mention what might happen to Naruto, and that without counting how all the involved ones would be treated… he couldn't believe Minato had talked them into doing any of this.

'No… get Kakashi here, and contact Sarutobi-sensei.'

'Sandaime-sama?'

'He should be in line fifty four. Over."

Shikaku stared at the transmission, frowning deeply. So even the Sandaime was aware of what was going on here…? Giving the Hyuuga a troubled look, he changed lines.

'Hatake… Forget whatever you are doing, the Hokage is down and we need help now.'

'Roger that.' said Kakashi and jumped out of the line he was following. He almost had Naruto grasped in his hands, he knew that. But he also knew that in this distance he could chase the child forever as Naruto was not good at hiding that much, but he was good at getting lost from sight. So there was no help there. And it seemed he was needed somewhere else.

'Naruto, stay here!' he said out loud, hoping the kid would have at least so much decency to not follow him and changed his way to the possibly shortest shortcut he knew to get back to the scene of horror. 'I'll be right there.' And with that, he cut off the connection.

At the scene of happenings, Daichi still kept looking at Itachi in silence. It was almost uneasy and painful as the youngster was not used to being stared up so much, especially when everyone knew he could stare back and with rather unpleasant effects. But now he couldn't do that. So he kept squirming.

'Who are you?...' he whispered in a voice thick with despair, blinking with those violets at him, seeming to not recognize him at all 'What are you doing here?... It's not a place for brats like you…'

'Uchiha Itachi, the Konoha's ANBU captain.' he recited without useless words and straightened a bit to look a little more formal. Finally, he could lessen the stress into some formalities 'I'm here to help. Are you all right Kazekage-sama?'

The man blinked then he looked down with a painful frown. Gods, was he actually going to cry?...

'I am, but Mina-… Hokage-sama… he…' he paused, then rose a hand to move it lightly over the broken jaw, now disintegrating the stoic looks on the blond's face. Then he looked at him again. Itachi budged, feeling like if he was caught red handed on staring at something he shouldn't have seen, even if he knew that if that gesture meant something, anything of sorts he might have suspected – even if it was completely impossible! – it was the older man who should feel ashamed, not otherwise. '…he needs help. Take him to the hospital. Now.'

Itachi without protest took the body of Hokage that was handed to him. Not that he could protest anyway, whatever a kage said was supposed to be treated like a word of god. And now, Sabaku no Daichi even looked like some sort of god. Kind of.

'What about you, Kazekage-sama?...' he said in a quiet, quietest meep of worry for the upper classman, even if he knew it was only a formality 'You don't seem to be so good.'

'Don't talk nonsense, brat.' Answered the saffron haired man with adamant tone and pushed against his shoulders when the earth shook with yet another dancing steps of the animals above them and the roar of pain. Itachi glanced aside for a brief second, noticing how Bunta's eye seemed to be completely covered in a wound that couldn't be done by anything else but a cutting weapon. He glanced back with a sense of unfixed fear. The things seemed to get out of control. Despite being an ANBU captain and one of the best prodigies from his year, he didn't want to stay and see the end of the world happening 'You have to take care of your leader or there will be no one to take care of you once everyone would know that you let him die. As for me, I have a plenty of chakra lef-'

And with those words, Daichi fell forward, almost on his face. Wasn't it for his ninja reflex, he would probably feel the taste of the infamous sand.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Naruto stood gasping on the precarious perch of a tree branch that would have surely snapped if anyone older or heavier than the five-year-old had tried to step on it. He didn't know where he was running or what was happening anymore, only that he was being chased and that if he was caught he'd never get to help… Fix… Get rid of… God, what was happening. He felt like in those nightmares he sometimes had (when days were particularly bad, when people were especially mean…) those dreams where everything was fire and anger and he felt this senseless anger, this craving to do…. Things… To the people. To the village. To his father…

But he loved his father! His daddy was the best daddy in the world and loved him like no one else ever would, and he accepted him and took care of him and… where was he? He couldn't smell him. Everything smelled like dirty blood, and it made his skin crawl in anger and apprehension. Kakashi had stopped giving chase, which was good, but he was listening attentively to that communicator thing… And what he said next wasn't good. At all.

'Naruto, stay here!'

And then he just left. Which was worse, so much worse even though his panicked mind told him it shouldn't be, only if Kakashi left him all on his own it was for good causes. Because Kakashi's most important work was to protect him, so if he left him alone it mean that… that his daddy… He was sprinting as fast as his short legs could carry him after the jounin less than ten seconds after being told not to, his speed nowhere a match for the teen, but his scent crisp and warm against the frozen snow. It was moments later that he fell down on his face when the earth suddenly shook dangerously, leaving him gasping for air in terror. What… what was that…? An inhuman shriek followed by trees falling down.

He'd gotten up with a startled cry and already given ten tottering steps in the direction when a sliver of coherency finally made through the terrified haze he was in. Your mother didn't die because you were born, Naru. She died because she never measured consequences. She knew you were about to be born and how important the both of you were to me, yet she put herself in danger for nothing. She wanted to do what she thought was right. It never mattered to her if what she felt was right was fair to other's or not.

And he was the most important person for his daddy. And he was small. And weak. His mother had been a great Kunoichi, but she had died all the same. He wouldn't be able to help at all. Even if he wanted to, no matter what he did… But he couldn't leave his daddy alone and in danger! If anything happened to him, then he would… he'd be…

With a high pitched cry he turned around and made his way back to the house. He needed to find help. There where Hyuuga all over the place, Neji had told him so and he could trust Hyuuga to help his father. He had to find someone, fast.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Kazekage-sama?... Kazekage-sama?...' asked Itachi In a panicked voice, seeming to be not as convinced as he tried to make him to be. But he couldn't help it. The sudden swoosh on his skin made him feel a little better, but then, it made him feel suddenly so weak like if he had been sailing on one of those hellish boats that made him sick on the stomach. To tell the truth, it almost felt like if he was thrown underwater. A rather rare experience from his side. 'What's happening? What are you doing, Kazekage-sama?...'

'Uh… it's nothing…' he rasped, feeling how the second seal has dissipated on his skin with one last flash, leaving an empty passage and getting back to the first seal. The glint on his skin faded away, along with patterns and new color of eyes. He looked up, seeing how petrified and yet, confused Itachi kept staring at him and balking. He tsked. Stupid brat!

'… I said get out of here!' he roared, barely reaching half of another level of tone of painful grunt that was let out by Gama Bunta. It seemed that he and the beast were trying to get the same katana at once and the frog held the sharper side of it 'If you won't do it right now, I swear…' That was all it took to make the brat stand and run away. Good.

'…and take care of that white-haired ass on your way!' he shouted after him, standing up despite everything he felt like doing. It was not like if he suddenly started hating or disrespecting the elder. It was just the fact he knew he was somewhere out there, still capable of helping and didn't do anything. More than enough to use some vulgarizations.

'Gah!...' he coughed as he finally stood up on his two legs, feeling like if someone has ripped half of his soul out of him. They felt so weak. He didn't even remember the last time he felt his limbs being so weak. Not even as infant. Legs and tights were the strongest muscles in his body, just after biceps. And now he barely could walk. But still, he couldn't even try to obtain such comfort as walking. So he ran.

'Father!...' he heard in a delirious cry from far away as he got closer to the place where he last left him for mercy and the lack of it from the goddess fate. Thankfully, the redhead seemed to be much more conscious of his state now as he crawled out of the sand hole himself, currently abandoned by Shukaku who, at this time, lost hold on the katana and boomed in laughter as Gama Bunta fell on his back with a painful hit.

'Hahaha! What a stupid amphibian! Or should I call you vermin also?' it roared with laughter that seemed to overpower the madness in his voice yet again. For a moment Daichi felt grateful for fate that they made Shukaku smile nonstop, so it was probably impossible for it to stay angry for long. Which didn't change the situation for any better by the way 'Because you're weak like a vermin too! Just like your master who seems to be in great pain over there, but don't worry, once I'm done with you, I will take care of the rest of the worms also! Hahaha!'

'Ugh…! Don't… don't say that about Jiraiya!...' muttered Gama Bunta, getting up with a big strain. Yes, that definitely had to hurt. That and that gash on his left eye and several wounds on the legs and back. For animal of such heights, Gama Bunta took much more damage than any ninja animal should 'Only I know him enough… to insult him that harsh!'

And with those words the toad stood again with a hard stomp. So hard it actually made everything else fall down. Daichi cursed under his breath, trying to not make himself spottable, even if the kid did it for both of them long time ago. Really, that toad should watch where it was standing!... It almost got his foot!...

'I'm sorry, brats.' he heard from the above 'But if you will lay immobile like that, you will actually become a worm it talks about.' said the toad, letting go another puff of smoke out of the big nostrils. 'What are you waiting for? Move!' Daichi didn't need to be told twice. Especially as very amused Shukaku added the spikes of sand rushing after him probably for another play of cat and mouse. In such circumstances, he, of course, ran. He didn't know how as he didn't feel his muscles anymore (or tendons or bones or nerves or…), but he ran.

'It's time to end with such as you!' shouted Gama Bunta, getting prepared to make a deep cut. Shukaku didn't even turn his head to look at him, amused by the older man's administrations. Daichi, not being aware of his surroundings anymore, just ran forward the spot on the horizon that looked like his son. And when, just when the toad moved to make the cut, he tripped again. Clack… And once again, he dipped underwater. The sounds and feelings around him slowed down as he fell head down on the sand, not managing to move his hands to cover underside of him. He heard something like a big explosion and saw Gaara running toward him with a panicked scream, but what was he saying, he had no idea…

He felt so… strange… He closed his eyes. And opened them. And closed again. What?... What?... He shook his head. For a moment… for a moment he thought he couldn't see. Or hear. Or do anything at all. His lungs felt so heavy to breathe… he looked at the ground, gasping like if he was a fish that came from underwater, feeling that the ground shook beneath his fingers. What was happening?... He couldn't rise his head…

'…athe…! Atheer!... Fath…r!...' shouted the kid above him (when did he come so close after all, but he couldn't understand the single word. He gasped. Pain. Something cracked inside. One, two, three. He tensed up, expecting a blow from muscles or a sharp punch, but nothing of that came. Suddenly, just like if he switched off the light, the whole tension let go. The first seal has dissipated.

And he could see normally.

'Father?... Father!...' whimpered the kid above him, afraid to touch him like always. Without a word, he caught the brim of his clothes, just to be sure if he was real. Then he moved his heavy head to the side, to see what he actually missed. Hopefully, not much. Or did he. Shukaku stood still, hunched low like if he was sleeping and the sand fell from the big spoon-like body in waterfalls and rivers, covering everything with light brown dust. The head lied a few meters deep in the forest, cut off and sandyfying also. A hundredth or two hundredths meters away, stood Gama Bunta, with katana risen up high and victorious.

The great power of the monster couldn't be felt no more. Could it be… could be…? Impossible, but…?

'What's happened?...' he whispered faintly, not knowing whom as he was not expecting answers from Gaara. The redhead didn't seem to be able to tell him also. 'Who did that?...'

'My role is done here.' said Gama Bunta with a tired tone, looking forward, letting the blood drip down from his face majestically 'Jiraiya, I hope you know you will need years to pay this debt you made from me… better be ready to face it next time we meet.'

And then, with a puff of smoke, he was gone. The sand slowly diffused on the light wind.

'Could it be?... Had this?...' asked Daichi, looking at the dune that was getting smaller and smaller by every second, almost like if it weighted nothing 'Impossible…' But even by then he knew that impossible was nothing and the greatest acts were the simplest ones. You didn't need a smart jutsu to actually win and if you won, that didn't really matter either. What was the most important was the fact it was finally… finally over.

He turned to the redhead that stood in front of him, still stressed out and whimpering and managed to make a small, small smile. The kid looked at him, registering it, but before he had chance to react, another voice called to them.

'Kazekage-samaaa!' he heard from the side with the known tone, as the grey-haired nin jumped out from the bushes and ran up quickly to them 'I'm sorry!... I'm late!... Got lost… searching for the fox!... Where's Hokage-sama… and the monster?...' he breathed out on the dry air, barely breathing. Daichi felt like smacking him. Just on time when everything has ended. Perfect timing, Just perfect. If he knew any better he'd thought he did that on purpose.

'The monster is gone.' he said in a little tired tone he rarely dared to make, out of simple fact he had image to keep up. But not now, when he had almost ripped his soul out of himself in the process of getting the seals to work. 'And Hokage-sama is in the middle of his own way to the hospital. Somewhere right there.' He said, pointing at the possible side of the forest where Itachi went 'If you hurry you might catch up to them and that young Uchiha.'

'You mean Itachi?' said Kakashi, looking around. The whole territory seemed to be completely devastated. Konoha would have to pay a lot for that. He wondered if the council actually knew about this or if they would have a very… pleasant surprise. Or unpleasant. Depending on which side he was on 'That wouldn't be a problem if only it wasn't so dark already, but that's why I have this, haha…' With that, the grey-haired nin clapped his left side of face, clearly indicating that he meant the red eye hidden underneath. Daichi frowned. Dark?...

'But it's only middle of the day…' he said, then winced in pain. With a surprise, he looked at his arm. Bleeding. His arm was bleeding. And it didn't seem to cut by anything. No, it only looked like if it spilt by itself, like on the desert, when- Daichi's eyes widened. He rose his head, looking around frantically. No sand. But also, no wind. No sign of the wind that blew just a few minutes ago… Oh no…

'Ouch!' said Kakashi, wincing a little as his hand split a little, then the side of his leg 'What- ow! What's going on?'

'Father…' The older man turned, looking at the child. The child was also getting the cuts. Only, not really. Because t h e s a n d w a s p r o t e c t I n g h i m. Green eyes stared back. With the same fear. He didn't need to ask. He knew what it was.

Kamaitachi. The effect that kept on existing only in the eyes of cyclones. And Khamsin. Tatsumaki no jutsu. The wild cyclone that kept on erasing life on the desert every few years. And that's why every few years they kept on giving big amounts of money to architects. After every cyclone, they just had to start all over again, almost from beginning. Wind country was a crazy place to live in.

And he actually kept wondering why the new cyclone didn't keep on coming onto the village for the past six years. Now he didn't have to do that anymore. He had the answer clear and bright, like the sun he couldn't see.

'You tiny stupid vermins!...' roared the ground with owly anger and then, without the slightest warning, it cracked on many pieces and started tumbling down in dry grins, while one big pole of dust rose up and started encircling them with the wild speed '…you will PAYYY!...'

'What the heck…' asked Kakashi, looking to the side. Daichi didn't even think twice. He just grabbed the nin by the hand and with the ungodly strength he didn't know he still had in himself, he tossed the youngster out of the sandified space. And just in time, because the second later he and Gaara were locked in the grand circle by big poles of rising dust. Cut, cut, cut, cut. Kamaitachi. Almost a good name for a jutsu.

'Gaara, come here.' he said, grabbing the kid despite all his memories and past experiences so hard like if it was the only stable thing on the whole world. The redhead answered with the same, looking up at the darkened, dusty sky that hid almost the whole world 'This is not going to be pretty…'

Up above them, the two golden eyes opened up, around the malicious, pointy smile. And then, the poles of dust moved in the swirling motion, braiding up, pressing against themselves… He felt the strong wind picking up against them, feeling how the cutting has stopped, only to be replaced by the strong blows of sand from every direction and how his body, despite all his strength and weight lost the crutch in the holly ground.

'Here it goes…' he said, seeing how the pressure started accumulating around them and as the golden eyes closed up above, stopping their observance and melting with the moving walls. He wasn't sure what was happening outside, but it was probably pretty windy out there and even if people tried to do anything, there was no way to stop the pressure of the wind that pressed against itself. They'd had to cut Shukaku out of this and how to cut out the grins of sands if they were everywhere? He felt his feet slipping deeper as the ground dried up more and started adding to the tornado. They'd had to eliminate the source. They'd had to eliminate the whole earth and air…

He felt the sharp tug again as it blew at him from the other side and made them fall on the face. Gaara whimpered from under him, but he couldn't help it. The wind was too strong to even move an already weakened limb.

'It's okay… it's okay…' he muttered without logic or sense. It's okay, Daichi, it's okay… it's only a bit of wind… _it's okay, son_ 'It's okay, son…' _But no matter what you do…_ 'No matter what you do… Gaara… no matter what you do…'

…_keep moving forward, Daichi…_

'…keep moving forward…' The redhead nodded. And then the ground cracked beneath their feet and he lost the last stable crutch he had ever believed he had. The Shukaku cyclone has started its existence.

'Holly shit.' said Hizashi, who never said anything more improper than 'darn' and only when he was in the room alone 'I knew something was going on, but not that…'

And to tell the truth, he had no idea how to even report that or how the Sunanins would hide that. It was a simple bridge between earth and heaven, whole made of browny dust and sands, looking at all of them with eyes from time to time and simply growling at everything out there. But knowing the abilities of Sunanins, he probably didn't have to. From the size of the thing, everyone in Konoha could easily spot it from any place they wanted. He wouldn't be surprised if Sunanians could do the same. The communicator buzzed.

'Yes?' he asked with pale mouth and dead voice 'Hizashi speaking…'

'Hyuuga Hizashi?' It asked with a crack and little whistles. It seemed the wind was starting to take its toll on electricity. And speaking of which, where was Itachi?... Without a word, he started searching for people 'Would you mind telling me what's going on there?...'

'Yes, Hokage-sama.' he said, spotting the pair of personas a few meters out of range of the cyclone, walking forward. Amazing that Itachi could even walk against it, much less running. But then, the wind didn't seem to be very pressuring, maybe it was not that dangerous as it seemed to be. Especially as Kakashi was standing much closer and not being eaten by it too '…or no, Hokage-sama. It seems that the beast that was chased out of Gaara has changed.'

'Changed?' asked Sarutobi with a frown, observing how the big brown twister had demolished his horizon. And so far, only that. 'Changed how?'

'Into cyclone, as you can see. A big, ugly cyclone of sand. It doesn't seem to be moving yet but…'

'…we never know if it won't.' said Sarutobi, immediately moving to the other alarm phone to call all forces ready to fight and of course, contact the worried granny 'And how's the status of people fighting?'

'Namikaze Minato Hokage-sama is unconscious.' said Hyuuga obediently, seeing as something strange and orange was running toward them through the forests. Could it be… Naruto?... 'ANBU captain is taking care of him, they're running away from the place. Hatake Kakashi is the closest to the point of observing, but contacting him is quite hard.' he said, glancing at the communicator that kept on buzzing and spitting words Kakashi said, but only those which it liked to communicate, without any logic. 'Nara is working on that. Kazekage-sama and the object are… inside.'

'Inside? Inside what? Your mansion?'

Hizashi swallowed the saliva slowly and obediently. So good, so far, and he was still not used to everything that happened to him on missions. Especially if those were not good news.

'No, Hokage-sama, not inside my house.' he repeated, looking at two dots of people that now kept on swirling inside the monster alone, separated, either on purpose or accidentally. Either way, it seemed that the pressure inside had to be quite big if the man such as Kazekage couldn't get a hold of such light thing like Gaara 'Inside the cyclone.'

The silence that fell on the other side of the line didn't have to be explained. Without a word, he clicked off the communicator.

'…it's big… windy… I can't… jutsu blows back to my face…' said the other communicator along the lines of something that could mean anything, but so far Shikaku seemed to understand what it was all about. Or at least he tried to look like that.

'What did Hokage-sama say?' he asked casually, like if it was another call from wife asking if they knew they had to buy two kilos of apples and not three. Hizashi blinked, feeling like if he didn't closed his eyes for months.

'Nothing.' he said truthfully 'He said nothing.' Because really, what was there more to say?... And with that, he turned around to meet the panicked blond. If there was anything he could do, he could at least take care of one person that meant something to Namikaze Minato. He doubted he could do anything else.

Naruto recognized the man with the ponytail and the scar, he'd probably seen him very often in the office and more than likely even been caught by him trying to sneak past him, but Hizashi was Neji's father and Hinata's uncle, a person he saw much more often; not to mention a Hyuuga, so that's who the kid practically tackled. Then proceeded to explain, or at least that's what he seemed to be convinced he was doing, because all he really did was shriek in that almost hypersonic pitch only dolphins and badly frightened children really could manage.

'All right, all right, I get it.' said Hizashi, crouching down to the child and holding him up to the shoulders only to massage them lightly. He never went further with any of the children that he took care of, unless it was his own son. But it was a simple matter of father-son relationship '…actually no, I get it that I don't get it. Calm down and tell me once again. Okay, Naruto? Breathe. One, two. One and two. Better now?'

'No, it's not!' the kid shrieked in that same hysterical tone, hands going up and gripping the older man's, nails digging in hard enough to draw blood in one or two points. Lengthened nails. His pupils were slits in eyed that had darkened to almost purple. 'My daddy needs help, I don't know where he is and Kashi left me so he's hurt, so GO HELP MY DADDY!'

Hizashi winced at the sensation, then he let go of the pain through his breath. He already saw what was going inside the child, the chakra was absolutely going on haywire. But he could do nothing to stop that unless he wanted to Jyuuken him down for a moment of calmness. Which probably wouldn't work very well.

'Naruto, listen.' he said gently ungripping the fingers that made the most damage to his skin 'Hokage-sama is fine. He is not fighting now and he is going back from there with a little help of a friend. Kakashi left you because Hokage-sama and Kazekage-sama needed his help and he needs to stay there to actually see if there's anything to help there. But don't worry it will be all right.'

With that he glanced to the side, noticing the parameters of the thing and noticing it didn't still move an inch. It would be hard to do something once it would start going around the place 'Do you want to go to Neji and Hinata? I will take you to them.' he murmured in calm voice, nodding to Shikaku to call him back once something would happen 'You can't be here. We're working here.'

The little blond let out an animalistic, drawn out whine, not even seeming to be aware of such a thing. Hiashi was lying. That terrible thing, that feeling in everything, in his skin, told him so.

'No, no, I have to stay.' The hands twitched nervously, closing and opening again before they clutched at the sweater he was wearing. 'Where's my daddy? Who has him, why does he need help? What's happening?'

'Naruto.' said Hizashi, this time a little more firmly, though he still hesitated about telling the whole truth. He knew that the little redhead was a friend of his already and hearing what was going around would probably be pretty damaging. Brain damaging if he could say it that way. 'Naruto.' He said again to get his attention and looked him in the eyes 'Your daddy is not in danger, I know that.' he said, remembering the way chakra of the blond fluctuated. 'We're in the middle of secretive mission of highest priority so I can't tell you everything. But once Hokage-sama shows up he will be the first to tell you what you want to know, okay?'

The blond kept looking at him with that frightened expression, looking like if he wanted to run away, stay where he was and keep shrieking senselessly, all at the same time. Neji thought his father was the best man in the world, and he didn't think he'd lie… well, maybe he'd lie to him and he wouldn't even be able to tell because Kashi told him that when one lied pupils usually dilated but Hyuugas didn't *have* pupils in the first place, but Hyuugas had a debt to his father because of some really complicated political things and they wouldn't let him die… Would they?

'I want my daddy.' he whimpered, eyes filling with tears. 'I don't care if he doesn't tell me, I just want him here.'

Hyuuga looked at the kid for a moment with anxiety as he really didn't know what to do. Neji at such moments tried to be brave and Naruto didn't seem to have the same cravings. With a little sigh he decided to overstep the rules and stroked the child on the head lightly.

'He will be back soon, I promise.' he said finally, then he stood up, offering a hand ' Now let's go to Neji and Hinata, you will wait for him with them.'

The little blond flinched but didn't move away from the touch, just sniffed quietly.

'I want to stay.' he protested, but there wasn't any force to it by now. Hizashi smiled sadly.

'I would love to have an eye on you, but I'm afraid I can't let you stay here.' he murmured, not stopping the stroking, as it seemed to make effect on the child. At least he hoped it was the good one 'This is where we work. Me and Mr. Nara. See him?' he said, pointing at Shikaku 'It would be really a… drag if you'd stay here. Right, Shikaku?...'

The other man just gave a look at the crying child and winced. Like most of the survivors he didn't really want to think about the kid as a real child, just a pretty and very blond container of a monster that could get uncorked at any given time and for no particular reason. It was hard to stick to that mindset when the little kid was acting like any other brat his age would.

'If your father finds out we let you stay here he'd eat us alive. You know that.' The kid just relaxed a little more under Hizashi's ministrations, which probably meant he knew how true that statement was.

'…right.' added Hizashi, not fully satisfied, but actually pretty happy that Naruto did seem to understand what was that supposed to mean 'So now… let's go.'

The blond followed obligingly. There wasn't anything else he could do.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

'Good morning honey, rise and shine!...' muttered at him with low, pleased voice. He rose his eyelids slowly and immediately blinked them, feeling how the sand brushed against his pupils and how the wind pushed against his whites. He felt light. Flying… in the air… Big golden eyes of the beast from nightmare squinted with pleasure, grinning at him toothily. 'Wakey-wakey, brat-sama!...'

Daichi breathed on the windy atmosphere. He felt tired. He closed his eyes, letting his head fall to the side.

'…ather!...' squealed something above him in a tiny, tiny whimper. He didn't know what was it. He slept. Ba-dump.

_Ba-dump. _

_The sun was so shiny this morning. Wide, big, strong and shiny and completely, completely strange. He didn't like the way it looked. He had bad feelings about it. It was too red._

'_Father!... father, please, let's wait for tomorrow with moving out!...' he leaded to the man of strong jaw. The male smiled and patted him on the head._

'_Daichi, oh Daichi, why do you worry so much?... This will be quick, we only have to buy some water in the nearby town and wind around jewelry shop, you know how your mother wanted to see the new stones right from her homeland. You know how rare it is.' _

'_But father…' The harsh pinch on the ear hurt much more than a punch on the face he could've gotten instead._

'_Daichi, be nice.' They moved out._

Ba-dump.

_The wind was fairly light and easy, almost nonexistent. They got around the town easily, bought water for lowest possible prices and then mother showed him beautiful stones from her size of the country… desert on the north was a harsh and yet, very proud part of the land. It made the hottest and the most windy seasons, making the most beautiful shapes happen, which were sold by old people with old wrinkles by the old money he didn't know what else use for than to buy more of such stones. He gazed with amazement at the big desert rose made of light petals of stones shining with crystals called 'mica' and compared them to the skin and hair of the woman near him. He knew very little of jewels, but he knew he had to kn__ow something to make his future wife happy. _

_And with such a beautiful woman by his side he knew he wouldn't have any problems with that. His mother was beautiful. Red hair, green eyes… such a beautiful, proud amazonian woman she was… _

'_Husband of mine, I like this one.' __she said with the shadow of affection in her voice. Like every woman should be. The pearl hidden in oyster, showing the sweetest sides of her character in the depth of households… _

Red hair, green eyes… 'Father!... Father!...' it shouted at him, something, anything, unclear and hidden, ridden, moving… something was moving… His forehead was wet. Why was it wet?... He looked at his fingers.

'Mother…' he asked with a weak voice. Something rumbled to his side with a light laughter 'Mother, why did you anoint my forehead with red paint?...' Then the pressure lowered and he felt like if he was falling down. Someone was screaming with the same whimpering voice and then the hold was there no more. He felt weak. He turned his head to the side and slept.

Ba-dump.

'_You look beautiful.' _

'_You look charming.' _

'_You look stunning, madam.' Those were the words that always fell from mongers' mouths, not his father's. But he didn't need to say that, his eyes shone when he thought so and mother knew that by the glint of an eye. Like today, when she wore the light jewelry he bought her and when he looked at her. He wondered if he would ever find someone to whom he could look to like that. _

_It was hot. And stifling. The sun above them, strangely orangeish and not whiteish, shone with this calmness that was unheard of at this part of the year. Daichi moved forward, observing the camels that seemed to be like always and yet… It was something there… He glanced around when his parents chatted with calm words, sayings things about dinner, making plans for tomorrow, wondering about the day after tomorrow… He looked at them with unspecified fear and couldn't understand how could they ignore… ignore this strangely golden sun… _

_He hissed when his hand stung suddenly, rising it to his face. Then with a frown, he looked at it. He was wounded. But how his father could attack him like that when he and mother were talking so freely and lightly in front of him? The cut was made from behind… behind… It was strangely dark from behind… He slowly lied his hand down on the reins and kept observing the strange mist behind them. Strange. The cut on his hand looked almost like if his hand spilt open by itself…_

In the meantime, the old woman, known as Chiyo-baa-sama to some and 'gran' to some other was collecting her parts of herbs into different jars. Since all Sunanins were gone she had twice as much work to do, but she didn't complain. Herbs were her second life and hobby at that, so she could sit in the dark room and collect it, may the world fall down on its face and end with the most beautiful fireworks. There was simply nothing more beautiful than blue-coloured cyanide for her. Never. And just when she finished stocking it into the glassy vial, the communicator crunched.

'Man, who could that be?' she asked herself out of a habit she developed while living for so long in loneliness 'Probably that old man being as bored as always…'

'Chiyo-sama?' and indeed it was Sarutobi, surprise, surprise. With a smile she looked out of the window. It looked a little stormy, but beside that it was quite pretty weather for such a cold season.

'What is it, old man?' she asked, fixing the vial with a cork profusely. 'The weather is so nice that you shouldn't bother old woman while doing her spa, that might make mixtures go wrong…'

'Oh, yes, the weather… the problem is that it's not as beautiful as it looks like. Mirage made by Suna nins is awesome, really, but…'

A moment later the blue colored cyanide slowly seeped onto the grey floor through the broken vial. The door screeched with echo of slam.

Ba-dump.

'Father!... Father!...' meeped something miserably, once again holding onto him with tight grab. He opened his eyes drunkenly, looking at the overshadowed shape in front of him, noticing the deep red and light green, overwhelmed by the wild roar of the wind… so wild… so, so wild…

'It's so loud…' he whispered, looking blindly up and letting his head loll to the cushion he couldn't feel. 'So very, very loud…'

_It started out of sudden, abruptly, sharply. In the silence and strange heat that made the skin break, the first blast of the wind almost felt refreshing. It made the muffler fall from his mother's face, who caught it, a little surprised and cheered at the joke of the nature. But when the second came and the third followed, the smile died on her lips and made the strong jaw of his father lock, strengthening its look. He felt the heat and the strange dryness in the air that seemed to grow suffocating in his nostrils and hid his head behind his turban thoroughly as he was told. The camel on which he sat shivered with unease and he could feel how the heart that could be placed somewhere on the side of his left tight and knee started speeding up. He knew that._

_He knew that even earlier than the animals knew. He knew it before them all…_

'_The sandstorm is coming.' __said his father, immediately getting off to the hot sands and tucking all things they bought safely. 'We should keep close and try to walk through it as we have too little animals to just wait through it…' He paused to look at the darkening horizon through the thick dust that already has covered the sun and made it glow deep orange. Then he frowned with worry that didn't signify anything good._

'_But that's strange…' he muttered, getting up his muffler safer 'They didn't say anything about sandstorms passing nearby on those side of the land, did they?...' _

_The woman near him protested audibly, also looking at the darkness that was starting to get closer with every passing second. Daichi stared at it, knowing that if there was something more ugly than sandstorms, it could only be a desert cyclone and complete drought. So catastrophes of range that could be only stopped by larger groups or not stopped at all. Of course, they were Sunanins and ninjas at that, so they were most capable to live through them. But still, sandstorms were not pretty. _

'_Daichi, don't get off your camel.' __said the older male, getting up on his own and leading both other animals close to each other. Every one of them stared in front of the windy atmosphere with panicked glances 'I think you were right saying not to leave to the town today…' _

'_Told you so.' he muttered, immediately wincing as he was hit on the back of his head. Then the howling wind covered everything with brown and red, making him unable to turn back or see the expression of the man that always seemed to be a little too angry in his actions. He started to move forward._

The wind howled loud. And Chiyo didn't like it. Not in one bit. Actually, the closer she's got to the cyclone, the less she wanted to be there. Because really, how could they let this happen? Not that she could blame them, nobody knew that Shukaku could turn into something like this, when it was more than obvious. God of sand and wind could easily become something like that, especially if it had endless amounts of chakra to feed on. But what was she supposed to do there?

Of course, she had her puppets, some of the wide range and big weaponry. But how was she supposed to do anything to the wind mixed with sand, turning around in a mad twist? It was like trying to hit waterfall with fists. Pretty idiotic request for an old lady of her kind, if someone asked her. But of course, nobody did. She went there on her own.

'Chiyo-sama!' she heard faintly, for a moment mistaking it with another growl from the cyclone. Then the small figure has emerged from her side and she had to admit it wasn't her imagination only. But the brat, for a Hokage looked quite miserable in arms of that little kid (if someone asked her, but of course, there wasn't anyone out there to do that) 'Chiyo-sama, so good I have spotted you! Kazekage-sama… Kazekage-sama is inside this- this thing and I don't know how to help him… I have to take Hokage-sama to the hospital and… but!...'

'To the hospital? With broken jaw only? I thought that such things could wait in the middle of such crisis.' she muttered to herself, but loud enough to be heard by the young brat. How old could he be anyway? Thirteen? Who was putting thirteen years old kids to the battleground, beside Daichi of course? He could sell his own wife for a handful of respect, which he did. So it was probably his fault for that. And of course, the brat was supposed now to carry another useless (surprising here, really!) persona around. In the middle of the nervous breakdown by the way.

'Calm down, kid, it's only the end of the world.' she said merrily, but somehow it didn't seem to even get to the lips of the young brat 'And as for this useless grandson of mine I'm here to get him out of this. I heard that an Uchiha is supposed to be around here, are you him?'

The boy nodded, still pale and trembling. She winked at him. Finally, some tension seemed to go away.

'So I thought, so I thought, eyes completely like your father's… come with me, you will help me spot that troublesome Kazekage of mine.'

'But… Chiyo-sama, hospital…'

'This can wait.' And when the boy started protesting in a panicked voice, she just moved forward, not giving him any other choice – he had to follow her no matter if he liked it or not. She liked that untold code of Konohan's rules. There was nothing better than a bunch of nice looking men following around when all you saw in mirror were only wrinkles, wrinkles and wrinkled wrinkles one more time… But it was not time to feel younger right now.

She touched the surface of the swirling substance, not being surprised as the stone she used for that was simply gone at the touching surface. So it all not only worked like a big windmill, but also cut things to tiny pieces. Shukaku was surely an amazing creature. If he only wasn't so hostile toward everything…

'Where are they?' she asked with much more darkened tone as the task started multiplying the hardships in front of her. To get the puppet through that she would have to break the surface and not only once but twice to get the people out from there… but how to stop the thing from twisting, she had no idea.

'Up there.' said Itachi, pointing somewhere around two kilometers above their heads. Quite far. Not somewhere where her chakra strings wouldn't go but they surely would thin much to break. 'Gaara seems to be drifting away though…' Like if getting two people at once wasn't problematic enough.

But she had to try anyway, deciding to take care of Daichi more as Gaara should be still, at least partially, covered up by Shukaku's protection if it still demanded closeness of him to remain. The darned grandson of her on the other hand, had nothing there to save his poor, sorry-to-be ass. What was questionable was the fact that he was not doing anything. She didn't notice any spikes of chakra around the high above, like if the man was sleeping. Probably something must have happened after all. He wouldn't let them end in such situation without a good excuse.

'Can you break that?' she asked, looking at the sand swirling in front of her. Itachi blinked.

'Excuse me?'

'I asked if you can break that.' she repeated, getting out one of her better puppets she would rather not use, but it seemed to be the best suited to grab things under the worst circumstances 'Can you?'

'I don't really know…'

'I can.' Itachi turned around with surprise, then turned back with clear disgust on his face.

'Oh, you?' he muttered, tensing up 'I would never think a traitor and a thief would be able to go through something like that.'

'Then you will have to change your mind.' said Kakashi with light tone in his voice. He was used to cold shoulder from Uchihas already and Itachi's attitude was not surprising him in one bit 'When you played with sharingan I perfected my chidori so well it can break through very thick objects-…'

'Oh, so you won't be using your gift?' asked Itachi ironically 'And then I thought you value it much more than anything since it was given to you with so much care…'

'I do value it.' he answered simply and bended to make the chakra cumulate and form a chirping thunder around his hand 'Where to add that?'

'Front of you is enough.'

After a moment, when the big glassy hole was made in the moving walls, in less than second the puppet was passed through it before it closed over. Thankfully, Shukaku didn't react to that with more than a rumble of laughter like if he was tickled and the sand walls didn't cut off the connection between old woman's fingers and the puppet. Really, how did she got maneuvered into this?...

'Sometimes Daichi is so abusing my lack of parental love for him.' she muttered to herself, steering the toy to the point Itachi showed, keeping on trying to be more accurate than Kakashi, who joined him in this. But thankfully, it was not parental love she had for him. Ah, the grandparental bonds of love. What an awful weather for you to be in…

Creeaak. What… what is this?... Creeaak. No, he wasn't mishearing things. Through the wild howling of the wind and some whimpers far, far away, he heard a squeak, a very similar one to the creaking of the wooden floor… He opened his eyes with difficulty as he felt more and more like if he was falling into the deep ocean and every time he tried to come back to the reality – this reality which seemed to look more like a dream – it seemed like if he had to swim through more thick waters and longer distances. It was hard to see something through this grayness anyway… The thick water of color red dripped through his forehead and through his cheeks into his ears and all he felt was a sand paper stuffed up his mouth and nose. It was so similar… so similar…

The redhead looked at him with desperation and coughed, feeling once again like if he was falling. The hand that descended upon him also looked familiar… with all this… these walls… of the sand… and wind… Without hesitance, he caught the hand. It seemed to be cold. His eyes shut by themselves, nodding him off, drowning, drowning… It was the same as then… just the same… the same…

_The sand blew around him in thick cloud, forming a mist and cover around his head, arms and legs. He tried protecting his eyes before the sand that kept on attacking him from all sides, sharp like needles, sending shots of pain through his previously cut hand. _

_Normally he wouldn't walk. He would hug himself to the side of the camel and wait with all of them, jerked by the strengths that were far from his understanding and knowing. But when one camel fell on earth, being almost immediately covered, they knew they didn't have any other choice than to move. Move forward, against the wind to get out who knows where and when. Outside of this storm there could be as well day as night – the thick ginger dust around them covered the whole sky making them unable to see for more than a few steps forward, which got scaled down to one or two when it came to squinting the eyes. And he didn't know how long has they been going like that. It could be an hour or few days now. _

_His lips were dry and full of sand that crunched between his teeth even if he had covered mouth. His nose felt only the dull smell of dust. Only the skin of his father's hand felt more clammy than it felt before, and that was the only sign they've been walking for far too long – his father had rarely been tired if ever. He couldn't remember. But probably him carrying his wife who fainted on the way didn't help the matter much. Poor mother. In her lands there had never been any strong winds as the deserts she lived on were made of stones that rarely held any grains that were smaller than fist. It was not good that she lost consciousness, but she was a woman. Women were always weaker._

_At least that was what he kept on repeating to himself. Because it was impossible they were walking for so long it made his mother weak. If that would be it, the sandstorm should've had already ended. And then, after a few (only a few, not many, really!...) meters, his father fell on the ground for the first time. The clammy palm has slipped from his hand and made him turn his back to the wind that blew suddenly so hard it almost made him kneel on the hit. It was only a few milliseconds he was disconnected with father, but the man was already starting to get covered with sands._

'_Get up!' he howled with desperate voice, not looking at politeness or any rules between the father-son relationship 'Father, get up! Get up!'_

'_Only a minute…' rasped the man, his mouth already collecting the pieces of ginger sand in the corners. 'I feel so tired… let me lay for a minute…' _

'_No! No, damn you!' he shouted, jerking the man on the ground, feeling how his cloth has become more heavy and seeing how the camels that stopped hurled to themselves out of instinct, swinging like an old boat on the sea. With a few sharp pushes he finally managed to made the man stand up, even if re__d hair of his mother blew in his already dusted eyes and made him almost blind. Father stood up. And one of the camels fell down. _

_It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. _

'_Grab my hand!' he shouted, seeing how unresponsive the man was and how the fingers slipped away from his hand out of sweat. Finally, angered, he caught him by the sleeve 'We're going!' And they moved again. The wind howled impossibly. And it didn't stop. It didn't get weaker for one minute… _

He opened his eyes with a gasp as something hit him against his rib, seeing a big part of the log with shard of glass stuck in it. Thankfully it didn't tear his skin. But still, it hurt. He moved his head to the side, wondering why the wind got the golden eyes and why through the wild wheeze of nature he could hear malicious laughter. He looked up, seeing red and feeling that his hand still held on something and then gasped as it suddenly jerked with his body, making him go up to the sky. He didn't understand why. He was already closing his eyes… holding tightly…

'_Father!... Father!... Get up!...' he shouted, yanking the numb body in front him. He didn't know how much time has passed since the first fall, but the only camel they had left had simply gave up at least fifty hundredths meters ago and simply laid down only to be covered in sands in a few minutes. The man tried to beat him up to make him get up, whipping it successively, but it only made the camel go for another few steps to lay down and not get up that time. So they took as much water as they could handle by themselves and walked, walked, walked…_

_And then, father fell down for the second time, waking mother up. Daichi could see how white and pale were his lips and how sweaty was the skin on his forehead, and yet, with some wild, and completely unexplainable strength he just kept on shouting at him, them both to get up, to not give up, to fight, fight, fight…_

_Finally, they moved again. This time it was the woman who took her husband on her back and carried him, keeping her fragile, gloved hand in the tight hold of her child. And Daichi leaded. He didn't know. He only knew he had to move and that he couldn't stop. So he walked, even if his feet were all in wounds. After some more time, the deafening silence was getting hard to bear. The woman spoke up._

'_I'm sorry we didn't listen to you, son. You were right.' she said against the wind, barely hearable. And yet, he could hear her every word. The voice of a canary, that what she had. Her songs were known in whole Suna. The most beautiful voice. He nodded his head 'I'm sorry that we've got mixed into this awful sandstorm...'_

'_Nevermind!' he shouted back, tightening the hold on her hand, feeling the abrasive material against his skin 'Let's just keep going! We have to get out of this! Then we can talk!' _

'_I'm sorry Daichi. I'm sorry.' _

_And then he felt a jabbing pain in his neck, and he fainted. He didn't know for how long and exactly why. He didn't know what's happened when he was unconscious. All he could tell was the smell of both of his parents surrounding him, looking at him as big black fan stood behind them, covering them from the wind, but not looking stable at all. His mother's eyes were shining like if she was having a fever. Or maybe she was crying. He didn't know._

'_We have to do this…' _

'_There's no guaranty…' _

'_I'm out of ideas…' _

'_We will all die…'_

'_It's Khamsin… Rih el Khamsin…' _

'…_we will die.' _

_Then two blurred heads bended toward him, both in unison, smiling gently, patiently, calm… _

'_Daichi…' said his mother in a voice that echoed in his head like millions of small bells that sometimes were drawn on weddings in local churches 'We will give you now very much energy… very, very much… and you will have to take it. Take it, Daichi…' He nodded dumbly, not understanding, feeling how his body started filling up somewhere, where it was empty and then overflowing and growing even more, daring him to explode, but still, it seemed like if it was happening in another world while his mind was completely elsewhere. _

'_Father?...' he spoke up as the man smiled upon him. _

'_It's okay, Daichi, it's okay… it's only a bit of wind… it's okay, son' he said, kissing him on the forehead as he started getting up, feeling uneasy 'This will go after awhile…' _

_He whimpered, feeling lost in the new sensation, not liking the way it all sounded in his head, distant and fragile. The wind blew again and again, making the fan bow down more and more, making it touch the ground with such a despairing creak…_ Creeaak… _His parents smiled at him._

'_But no matter what you do…' whispered the man in the voice that seemed to fly away from them. The woman closed her eyes, making them swirl strangely. 'No matter what you do…' _

_Crush. The fan has broken down and finally, finally flew away. The wind hit them with full force, covering them with ginger sands, choking, burying- _

'…_keep moving forward, Daichi!…' said the man. Then his mother's eyes shone and his own has closed. And then, just then when he thought everything was lost (how he could move forward in this state?...) everything has stopped. The wind had gotten weaker and weaker, making him feel light when nothing was pushing against him and he smiled into it, feeling the happiness that the nightmare was already ending. He turned to his parents, asking them for their hands which they gave him and they had started walking again. The sun that had slowly descended from the thick afterdust was blistering and scalding his skin, but the danger of being buried alive was not threatening them anymore so he couldn't have felt more light. He felt almost like skipping through the sands… _

_He didn't know how long they had been going, but all signs on the dried earth seemed to be lucky for them. He saw the old cacti which showed them that Suna was up on the North (which meant that it was exactly where they were going) and then the pack of desert snakes had crossed their path which meant they were getting to more lived up area. The sun still kept shining as the air cleared out of the dust and became once again crystal blue, the most beautiful color on earth. The sandstorm had lead them through the right path. So strange they had ended so close to home!... Really, the life could be ironic sometimes. Because if they ever had made the move toward the East side of the desert maybe they would have saved the animals… but it didn't matter. They had many camels. _

_Their life was the most important. _

'_Father, mother' he said with eyes glimmering with happiness as the gates of Suna has blinked at them with the ginger red 'We're home.'_

_And his parents nodded to him with a smile, letting him lead and sharing his joy. It was good to be alive. So good. He way seemed to be short, passed between a few steps almost as he moved forward, ending up in front of the gates immediately. The guards didn't take their time, they showed up late and tired, probably from the sleeping on the duty. He smiled at them with joy that still kept on filling his heart. Home. The safest place on earth. Good._

'_Hey, who are you?...' asked one of the guards, looking at him suspiciously. He closed his mouth, not wanting to be rude to interrupt his parents talking. His father spoke out ad told him their names and districts they lived in. The guys eyebrows has furrowed._

'_The Sabaku __family?...' he muttered, then searched in the note that could only indicate they held numbers of people from the village. A normal procedure of a guard 'So you are… Sabaku no Daichi, huh?...' he said looking at him thoughtfully, like if he couldn't believe his own eyes. Then he turned around to the second guard that just came and started whispering with him. The other man turned to him. _

'_You're Sabaku no Daichi?' he asked, looking at him with even more doubt 'Then where are your parents, eh?' he asked, Daichi blinked, then bowed down politely, showing with his hands on his mother and father that stood near him. _

'_There they are. My father and mother.' __he said, not knowing if to laugh or not. In Suna jokes were not often met and it would be rude to laugh at something serious 'We went out a day ago to buy water in the nearest town along with jewelry for mother and when we were getting back, a sandstorm caught us on the way – unexpected of course, we wouldn't move out if we knew it was coming…' he said apologetically, looking at his father from the corner of his eye. But the man didn't seem to want to punish him for such insolence. He took a breath with a smile. _

'_But thankfully, it had ended, so now we're here.' The guards had looked at him in silence. The smile on his lips slowly dimmed. 'What?...' he asked, not understanding their abashed stares that they kept giving him. Then they had moved on the side and started whispering again. _

'_Did you hear that?...' he heard even from that distance 'He said he went through the sandstorm…' _

'_There weren't any sandstorms nearby beside this one… ' said the other in heated whisper for no reason 'Do you think…' _

'_Rih el Khamsin? Impossible!... Nobody had survived through Rih el Khamsin!... Not a one person!...' _

'_But look at him! Look how does he look like!... Does he look to you like a person that went through a normal sandstorm? He even doesn't have his camel!...' _

'_Camels die in Khamsin! Everything dies in Khamsin! Impossible…' he said, turning to Daichi, who frowned, looking at his arms. To him they looked perfectly fine. What were they talking about? _

'_Sabakus has moved out from the village, they ran away since that family was living through hard times, I know, I heard it… True, it happened during the market of jewelry from the northern tons, but… a child…' _

'_But if he is a Sabaku then he is Daichi…' when the other man didn't seem to show any recognition, he hissed with impatience 'Sabaku no Daichi, you know for sure!... the prodigy!... He was known to be the best replacement for current Kazekage!... ' _

'_But he wasn't even in academy yet!...' _

'_That's why it was a prodigy!...'_

'_I am known as a prodigy.' __he interrupted finally, having enough of those strange talks behind his back but happening like if they were just in front of him 'Can we go in? My feet are tired. And father didn't have a drink for a day. Mother too.'_

_They looked at him for a moment, once again with confusion and lowered their heads, lowering the voices even more, so now he could only hear the little pieces instead of whole talk. But even then it still sounded strange. _

'_What is he…' _

'_Don't you see…' _

'_Where…' _

'_There…' _

'_Ah…' _

'_Poor kid…' _

'_They must had to…' _

'_Should we…'_

'_I will do it.' _

_Then one of the guards has walked up to them, placing the hand on his head with something that could be viewed as consoling pat if it wasn't for the fact it was rude and dared to tear through his private space. He budged back, but the man held him in place with something akin to condolences in his eyes._

'_Sorry, kid.' __he muttered 'But I have to do it. Kai!' The air had wavered suddenly, making him blink as the sun has tore it way through his eyes, blinding him, only to dissipate completely. Suddenly, it all became dark, changing the sun into moon and many stars, making the walls darken and show strange scraps on it and the guards looked old and haunted. He blinked again, feeling how his hands became lighter and wiped off his one eye with something that seemed to be a very ridged velvet… _

_Only it was not velvet. It was his skin. It didn't look white and healthy. It was dark, burned, pruned, wounded… But how… how this had happened?..._

'_Father!...' he shouted, turning to the side, only to see one of the doors of the gates. There was no one beside him. And neither there was his mother. Only a piece of sleeve and a glove dangled from his thin, branchy fingers, like lonely fruits of grotesque tree. He screamed._


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight: Demon's never gone

_It was his skin. It didn't look white and healthy. It was dark, burned, pruned, wounded… But how… how this had happened?... _

'_Father!...' __Daichi shouted, turning to the side, only to see one of the doors of the gates. There was no one beside him. And neither there was his mother. Only a piece of sleeve and a glove dangled from his thin, branchy fingers, like lonely fruits of grotesque tree. He screamed._

It was not his mother! It was an ugly doll that kept moving him toward the sky, the horrific face of a monster up and up, making him lose his balance, making him tangle in chakra strings that weren't bounded to anything- …he let go of the hand. The puppet had flew away, crashing against the surface of the smile like if it was made of glass. The satisfied murmur of happiness could be heard around him. He blinked his eyes, feeling the pain in his side and no ground under his feet. Something cried under him and he looked down, only to notice a small dot of red and suddenly fall down with his stomach up his throat as the pressure has lessened sharply, only to make him get into a wild swirl on both sides, much too similar to carousel. Oh gods!...

He shook his head faintly, trying to grab onto the walls into this completely maddening situation only to move them back, feeling how his skin tore on the tips of his fingers. Then he hit onto some tree with a hiss and fell out of a swirl, only to get flying on the height he never thought he would see from above, even if he would build the greatest Kazekage tower in ages. He felt green. But then his stomach felt empty and there was very little too vomit, so he simply didn't throw up, breathing heavily. His memory worked in small, quick moves…

Minato… it was Minato… and then… they got to Konoha… and then… the monster… and Gaara… and Gaara suddenly attacked him… and then they came to this place… and he followed… and seals… Shukaku… Shukaku… He was in the middle of the Shukaku cyclone. Holly shit. Where was Gaara?...

He turned his head to look around, but then the wind tossed him up in the higher heights again and making him fall with a gasp. With a corner of an eye he saw yet another puppet being steered at him, but too far away to grab it or do anything with it. He recognized that style. It was a style of Chiyo-gran and it was probably her trying to help him. But how she was getting the things through that thick wall of moving sands?...

There was no time for thinking about that. He concentrated with difficulty trying to find chakra sign of Gaara, but his brain buzzed and sloshed like a broken bottle, barely getting on the right paths. Gods, what's happened to his head, it was all sticky with blood… he couldn't remember getting such a hard blow anywhere near it- but then, he couldn't barely anything that concerned the tornado he was in.

But then his brain has finally locked on the right paths and sensed some small chakra points of people he knew he could recognize – one was indeed gran. The second he knew he should recognize, but for some reason he couldn't, and then it was that older brat of Minato. But no signs of Gaara. Could it be…? 'Gaa-!' he shouted, but the shout has went down his throat as he had to hold his breath when the wind had tossed him up again, almost like if he was a living bouncing ball. That begged for a stomach revolution. Seriously.

'Damn you, Shukaku!...' he hissed through his lips and choked as the wind now shot him almost across up only to let him go to make him fall had down to his own death. He knew that if he fell right on his face it would be an instant death and it didn't seem that the monster was ready to kill him off. Oh no, not this time!...

'Screw you!' he shouted, catching on some branch that was lost in another whirlpool on the side. Thanks to that he landed on carousel again, but at least he didn't fall down on another plaything of the monster. But so far, Shukaku only chuckled, seeming to be even more amused by his opposing. He tsked. He slowly started to hate all raccoons on the whole world. 'Gaara!' he shouted out loud this time, letting the wind blow his hair wildly and toss the sand into his mouth as he opened them. No response. He jumped higher on madly swinging wood, looking further up from himself and searching the grounds. There was no redhead anywhere.

'Gaa-aa-raaa!' he shouted again, hoping against the hope and dodging the punch from sand with bare hand, obtaining a big violet bruise. 'Gaa-aa-raaa! It's me, father!...' Something meeped again. At first he didn't notice as the deafening sound of the sand grinding was overwhelming, but now as he heard it again, it was obvious it didn't belong to the waterfall of sands. It was almost like a meow of a kitten. And sand, whatever it did, couldn't imitate cats that good. He waited, listening, then hopped from the branch he was on to another that was passing nearby with top speed, making him feel like if he was riding a bicycle at top speed. He shouted again.

And this time, it was more than clear.

'…er!...' meowed at him from downside and he turned his head there, looking, searching… Gaara was nowhere to be seen. Unless he was hidden in the sands, but he doubted the kid could hide in those moving masses. Or inside the old trunk that drifted quite calmly on lower pressure at least half of a kilometer lower.

He had too much to risk to try to jump at such unsteady surface. But then he had much more to risk if he wouldn't have tried and Gaara would be waiting there. With a quick pray to all gods that could be listening to him he waited for the branch to move to the best position and landed on the old surface that indeed, broke under his feet. But only partially. At least he could've grab on it when his feet slipped.

But still, there was no Gaara in it. He looked around, trying to spot from where the crying choke had came but as close as he heard it, he couldn't see a strand of the redhead. So he either became invisible or… He turned his head when a cry had suddenly became much louder and fainted as he moved further from it. No.

'Gaara?...' he shouted, searching with his eyes for any sudden possible sign of appearance. Nothing has happened.

'Father!...' it shouted quite clearly at him. Daichi felt his hair standing up on ends. But yes. Why not. Shukaku was cruel. Gaara was on other side of tornado. He didn't want to even imagine what kind of images the kid could've seen from that height. But why were Chiyo's puppets not reaching out for him?... For all it seemed, the redhead was not moving at all as the cry was getting further away from him as he moved, but stayed at the same spot when the branch made the full circle. Could it be that he was stuck on completely different side of cyclone?... How could he not swirl there?

'Father!...' sobbed the redhead in helpless cry as he once again passed the spot from where the cry came. He looked at it with helplessness then punched it with force, only to shred his skin on knuckles. The moving sand was like a sandpaper that could tear metals to dust. He knew. He checked. The kunai he had on him remaining in the pocket simply got down to half until it became useless. A completely hopeless situation. If he only knew a normal lightening jutsu!... He was weak at those like if he was only chunnin, and with electricity that could make the battery alive he could only made false earrings. Which he did quite nicely if nobody interrupted him. That meant it was at least ten years ago.

Once again he tried to beat against the wall, but he only managed to bloody up his hand and look as the sign he made with blood flew away further on moving sand. Then he sighed. It seemed he had no choice.

'Raiton!' he shouted, making the golden eyes look from above at him with frown and the half eaten kunai in his hand glow. He already felt how bad it was, he hadn't made that jutsu for ages 'Raiseishi!'

And then the metal in his hand screeched with thunder, making the sand wiggle to punch him, only barely missing. It seemed it was hard for Shukaku to aim at objects by sand when it had to swirl around. He smiled to himself at irony of the situation, the luck in bad luck and he jumped at one punch, falling from it only to beat the wall with glowing kunai with all his might and praying that he was hitting sand and not Gaara. It was hard to decide at what to punch where everything was the same.

The kunai flew out from a hole. Success. The redhead looked at him with teary face, not hurt by thunder. Another success. The hole was the size of his palm and it was tightening. Shit.

'Gaara!...' he shouted, taking his hand out to the redhead and grabbing him, only to yell in pain as the sand had tightened around his arm and moved him through the normal swirl up above. His fingers tightened on the little shoulder with strength he had only reserved for enemies, making the sand press at them. But Gaara was now moving with him, prisoned just as him.

Great. Only he could have had made the worst situation even worse for himself. All sands that moved above sooner or later met up with big facial expression of Shukaku, and from what he saw, the chakra in there was so condensed it made things blow up. Great. Just great!...

'Let me go!' he shouted, beating at the walls with his other hand, tearing his elbow to meat and not obtaining anything but an amused rumble. Damn it!...

The only answer he's got was a deep laughing rumble. He closed his eyes. No use… there was no use in anything. Seriously, what was he thinking… that he would be able to stand against Shukaku and win with it? No mere human could stand against gods, and that was what he was – a human that was called god but was valued only like a more entertaining insect in eyes of the bijuu. Because who was he?... A shadow of the wind?... Wind never needed any shadow…

He hung his head lowly, relaxing the muscles in his locked arm, making the bone hurt in it twice times more. He was only meters away, he felt his skin prickling with the high condensation of chakra…

'I'm sorry…' he muttered against the wall, letting his skin feel how cold it was in the place where wind howled nonstop and how shaken was his body after all the things that happened already. He closed his eyes, almost touching the surface of the sand with his forehead 'There's nothing else I can do… I'm sorry.'

Little warm fingers caught him by his grabbing hand on the other side, clasping tightly. He felt the wet breath coming from lips against his skin.

'No!...' the kid mewled pitifully on the other side and tightened the little warm hold. Daichi smiled ironically. So much for having a son 'No, father! Please… please!'

He shook his head hopelessly even if he knew that the kid couldn't see it. What he could do in this situation? They were seconds away from final death or at least he was. He didn't know if the kid would obtain the same treatment as he lost the awareness of the fact if Shukaku protected or tortured him out there. He smiled hopelessly.

'Maybe if he let go…' he said, chuckling, not believing it himself. The overwhelming loud laughter boomed to them straight from a few meters above.

'Do you really think I could let go?...' it asked with satisfied grin, squinting big golden eyes at the saffron haired man 'You're an insect and nothing more than that, playable, playful and interesting and you had my gratitude for letting me out from that kettle…' The kid whimpered as the particularly strong wind hit from the other side and Daichi hissed as something had scrapped against his fingers. Funny, how little things hurt more than big…

'…but that had ended when you started pulling out those strange seals against me. Silly, silly Daichi!... And to think I let you go when you were on the verge of dying…' The redhead on the other side had moved nervously. Daichi felt another pressure on bone, but didn't react to it with more than tired wince. What the hell was this monster talking about…

'Father!... Father!...' cried the person on the other side of the wall 'Seals!... use the seals!... Please!... Don't give up… father!'

Daichi smiled weakly. Like if he could…

'You can try, brat.' said the voice with the amused tone, much louder this time. Daichi could've sworn that he could smell the breath of it, even if he knew that such a beast couldn't have any smell beside the one of sands and winds themselves 'The Kazekage-brat is out of chakra at all and even if he tried he wouldn't do anything… good luck, hahaha… funny how the kid tries to wake you up with the same words you tried to wake your parents up, must be the damn bloodline limit…'

Daichi snorted sarcastically.

'Don't you know, Shukaku, it's not nice to eavesdrop from kettle when people are dying and not help?...' he muttered. Obviously, the demon could listen to all sands on the world even when it was locked. Probably that was the reason why it was not rebelling against the prison so much since boredom didn't bother it that much. 'You could've stopped the sandstorm… that Khamsin…'

'Oh but I did, I did help!...' said the monster, steering the pair of big golden pupils exactly at him. Daichi, despite being already lost in his lack of motivation, shivered. So that was what they called 'the eye of a god' that watched from above 'I let you go, didn't I?...'

That made Daichi's smile freeze. He slowly rose his eyes up, looking at the fact that was now near him, making his skin jiggle and push against the other side as the pressure grew. Huh?...

'You did what?...' he asked quietly. He didn't have to speak up louder. The sands heard everything.

'I let you come back to your village.' answered the Shukaku with slight edge of mercy in voice 'It was funny how you skipped through the storm like if it was perfectly sunny weather anyway, so why not? I was expecting much more fun from you and my predictions came out well. This pair of brats tried following you anyway, but then that was boring so…'

The monster paused, then let go a high amused laughter in his face, which had already paled even more, though it seemed impossible already. He did what?... How… how could he…?

'You… you let me live?...' he muttered with dry lips. The kid on the other side of wall cried with higher pitch now, scared twice as much as they were getting almost too close to the highest point of the cyclone, but to him it seemed to be happening completely outside the situation 'You… you…'

'What a pity, little Kazekage-brat.' said the Shukaku, interrupting almost lightly with malicious voice 'You couldn't save your parents, you can't save your brats and also now the whole another village will become desert and get taken to my terrority in the West sands… You're entertaining beyond reasons! Hahaha!...'

Daichi didn't answer. The cut he made himself on his lower lips with his teeth, somehow hurt more than the high pressure that started to press against his muscles, wanting to tear them to all sides of the world_. Move forward, Daichi. Never stop_. He couldn't stop. He blinked, feeling his eyes glint with the last force of chakra he restrained to stay conscious, feeling how gathering it started pulsing in his brain in dark dots and blots of light. It didn't matter. It completely didn't matter.

'You took away my past and my present…' he muttered, hearing the painful shouts of Gaara who was probably getting the same treatment as himself. The monster smiled at him and everything he did with sarcasm. 'Leave my future alone!'

'And what can you do to stop me?' laughed the bijuu 'Blow me to the Moon?'

'The world is enough.' said Daichi with snicker. And then, with all strength that was left in him, putting the maximum pressure on the hand locked in the sand and not minding the particularly deep scratch of the wind against his chest, he pushed his free hand right in the centre of the of the raccoon face, watching the skin tear like paper and splash on his shoulders with blood.

'First seal…' he muttered through his gritted teeth. The black-golden eyes widened.

'You!...' it growled. He didn't let it end.

'…activate!' he howled and closed his eyes as bright light of chakra shook with his body for the second time, blowing right to the big, nosy face of a monster. The wind hit him with the high pressure and cold temperature, at the same time unlocking his prisoned arm, along with Gaara. When he finally opened his eyes – both the lightness and Shukaku were gone.

The cyclone of the sand had started falling around them like a godless dry rain, an unwanted and unintended gift from dry lands he accidentally brought with himself. With one move he curled his hands to himself, hiding the pale warm body in his wounded chest, looking at it with something close to tenderness.

'We're free.' he whispered to the pale green eyes that looked at him with fear and then hid in a hug, holding onto him with trust. And they were falling.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Chiyo-baa-sama, are you all right?' The old woman chuckled. The way Itachi posed that question sounded almost like if she was giving birth to her first baby, it was so concerned. Too bad her first husband never was like that. Konohans were really soft creatures after all.

'Of course I'm all right, it's only a bit of healing.' she said cheerfully, moving her hands over the broken jaw of the Hokage, locking the bones and mending them in the rhythm of pulse of her own chakra 'Who would I be if I couldn't heal such a minor injury? That's nothing for a woman like me.'

With that, she winked at the blood-eyed boy, but it seemed he didn't caught on the joke. Hm. So soft and totally humorless… she liked that a little less. With one shine over the light scratch on the nose, she clasped her hands in a mimic of clap.

'Here, done.' she said with a smile, letting the youngster admire her job. And truthfully, it was a masterpiece, because no one wound could be spotted on the white skin and if he looked inside – also there. Sure, she was a little out of breath, but she didn't heal Hokages everyday, and especially in such short time. But as all her puppets went to pieces inside the big tornado, she had little to no other options there. Hopefully, when Minato would be up, he would know what they could do now.

'Okay, enough starring, it's time to wake him up-' she said, getting up from her knees. And the next time she knew, she was flying, taken in arms of another charming young man who had one eye red and other black, scooping also the healed body in other hand and making it scrap against the ground as he had skipped wildly through the bushes.

'Ruuun!' screamed Kakashi, turning to Itachi, who looked at him confused, then up to see what was going on-

'Holly hell.' he muttered and immediately spun after the younger male. The moment after, on the place he was standing, fell a big pierce of stone, crushing two pines in one go. And two next as it landed on the other side. The cyclone was falling down. In pieces.

But then, he stopped.

'Wait!' heard Kakashi, as Itachi out of sudden decided to not follow them and started dancing around the stones big like buildings falling down and crushing into the sand only then 'Kazekage-sama and his son are still up there!'

It was Kakashi's time to stop.

'But how do you want to help them?' he asked, also jumping from a big boulder heading for him and crushing the place he was standing on. 'They're… they're… oh shit, they're…!'

'…falling so fast.' ended Itachi with deadly whisper. And then he moved back to the centre of where cyclone previously was. But he didn't made even three steps, as two bodies hit the ground with such a loud crash, it made the ground shake and crumble in thin lines of the pressure. Itachi shuddered, reactivating his running again and getting close to the place of landing not without dread. How could they end up in such big hole?... Could it be Gaara's sand, that was so heavy?...

But then, the two figures had slowly emerged from the clouds of dust that flew up, covering the place with grayness. Itachi held his breath. Kazekage's eyes glowed in violet.

'Second seal…' he muttered with dry lips, as his skin glowed like glass, covering his arms with lines of tattoo that seemed to be more like vascular breaking and veins bursting than an actual drawing '…activate.'

And then, he swayed on his feet and fell onto his back, not hitting his ground. Gods, those kids were quick when they wanted to…

'Kazekage-sama! Kazekage-sama!...' shouted Itachi, along with Gaara crying by his side, but for a moment, Daichi felt like if he was pushed unwillingly into the deepest shores of the lake full of black water, deafening and blinding him completely. He knew that using the second seal in his state was madness. But he simply had no other ideas of what to use. So he prayed for protection to be a full circle and with the last gasp of air he used the last life-sources of chakra he could've used. Thankfully, he managed to pull it only a moment before hitting the earth, so it was only a blink of a second. After that, the spark had immediately dissipated. He felt it retreating on his skin… He barely could breathe.

'Father!...'

He opened his eyes. Gaara looked at him with scared, tearful face, holding onto his wounded skin tightly and trembled. Itachi still kept on shouting something to his ear, but he couldn't even hear what it was. Because all he could hear, was silence.

And scrapping of the sand, as the grains has slowly rose from the ground it hit, only to reconnect with dark stormy ginger cloud above them all, that gaped at them all with a frown, twinkling with two golden orbs. He knew that. He knew that it was not over. But what he could do?... Now, the monster wanted his blood. And nothing else. He felt the rage boiling even from that far away distance.

'You little vermins…' it growled from far away. Daichi held his breath.

'Go away.' he muttered, looking to the side. Itachi stopped, looking at him with fear and confusion. 'Go away I said!...'

'But Kazekage-sama…'

'Take Gaara with you and run!' he screeched, getting up to the sitting position and noticing three other people not far away. And, oh for gods' sake!... What was Minato still doing here? And unconscious to that!... 'Gran, you stupid old woman!... Get out of here, all of you!'

'No!...' mewled Gaara, pressing himself to his side with stubbornity and looking up with fear. Itachi also didn't seem to move. Thankfully, Kakashi seemed to caught on what was going on and vanished into the bushes in a moment.

'What are you doing, stupid kid, it's my grandson there!...' shouted Chiyo, already with a faint voice. Itachi looked up with face that showed that if there was anything that could surprise him, it had happened some time ago and he had enough of such already.

'I'm staying with you.' he said with cold tone. Daichi tsked and got up on his feet, looking the thirteen years old in the eye, noticing how cold the honorable Uchiha bloodline seemed to be. The cold, red blood.

'If you don't get out of here right now…' he muttered darkly, catching him by the brim of the shirt 'I'll hunt you down later and kill you. And make it all end in the war of ages.'

'I'm sorry, I'm still staying.' said the youngster, not fazed by his words a bit. Daichi scowled.

'Why you little!...'

'Father!...' squeaked the little redhead, grabbing his pants with strength he could only compare to claws of the vulture. Almost out of the instinct, he looked up. The sand was falling down. Shukaku was getting back to earth. And was already halfway here.

'Kazekage-sam-' started Itachi, already preparing to do something with his eyes, but without a word, Daichi just grabbed him tighter and threw him away, just as he did with Kakashi previously, his aim and strength being much more pitiful now and thus – much less effective. But then, it was still satisfying. The brat hit his head on the trunk and seemed to lose consciousness.

Good. Shukaku rarely was interested in corpses that didn't move. Not entertaining enough. He looked at his son, but Gaara seemed to be paralyzed, holding onto the pants for his dear life as he observed the sky with wide eyes and pale, a little opened lips. The monster was almost there. It was too late to do anything. And besides, the sand would probably follow him also, no matter what. The time for choosing has ended.

'Hold on tightly and don't let go no matter what.' he said quietly, putting up his hands in the lock he had already knew didn't work, but he knew he had to try anyway. Useless as he was almost blind from tiredness. But if the legs that seemed dead supported him, then why not hands that didn't seem to be alive? 'It's okay, son… it's only a bit of the wind.'

Gaara looked at him and nodded, obviously disbelieving, but he couldn't find any other words of consolation. His eyes locked on the sand rushing toward him.

'You piece of trash!' howled the beast, opening the big phynax and forming big sharp claws out of the cloud of sand running on him with ungodly speed. 'You will pay for everything, no matter if I owe you or nooot!'

Daichi smiled lightly.

'Watch me, father…' he thought again this day '…and lead me to hell if that's today I end my life.' Then he relocked his elbows, strengthening them. He felt no power and had no idea how to even flicker the chakra in himself as he felt weak like a third years old. The shadow of the sand and wind has covered his eyes. How wrong. He had no right. He was the shadow of the wind. He was the Kazekage!...

'I owe you nothing!' he shouted back and taking a deep breath. He felt powerless, but… 'Third seal! Activate!' Nothing has happened. Golden eyes rushed against him, covering everything in gold. The redhead shouted against his side. His face darkened under the shadow, pressure, smell… …and once again I lay my eyes on the Devil, oh fate, once again I lay…

'I said!...' he said, feeling how the grains touched his bare, wounded hands in the first contact '…ACTIVATE!'

Drip. He felt a drop of the water against his back. And then the sand has hit him, covering the whole world. Kakashi has stopped. The chakra… the chakra of Kazekage-sama…

'I said let me go, stupid kid, are you all Konohans that deaf and rude, when an old lady asks the gentleman has to listen so put me down you little!...' shouted the old woman against him, a very unbalanced comparison to heavy body of the blond on his other shoulder. Kakashi turned his head back, watching how the sand poured with all strength and masses on one spot, ignoring both of the bodies.

'Kazekage-sama…' he said in a whisper, making the old woman cut her yells and look at the place also. 'Impossible!...' The Kazekage had activated the third seal!... 'Amazing!...'

And he… he meant, his sensei wouldn't forgive him if he would abandon such view, especially as he was made sure that it would be the last move the Kazekage could make. He had to go and cop- help the Kazekage for sure. Now. In silence, he turned his steps back to the place he left. Almost like a game of blind tag.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Darkness. Darkness and thunder. And running of the water. That was what he felt. Death was surely a strange place. He couldn't hear his father was not anywhere near, but he doubted the man could hear him anyway. His parents had probably ended up in heaven…

'Father!...' he heard faintly, then louder, again. Funny, it sounded like Gaara. Had they ended up in one place together?... 'Father!'

'Gah!...' he gasped, and opened his eyes with tiredness. He felt the sharp claws biting at his skin somewhere at his knee level 'W-what…'

The sand roared wildly, pushing against his hands as he held them up above himself, almost like if they didn't belong to him. They glowed with lithe light, making an invisible shield above them and making the sand fall around them in waterfalls, so big they were covering them from all sides and shooting who knows where. The demon roared against him, forming deformed eyes and fangs against his wounded hands again and again, but it seemed it was impossible to bite on it. The same was with claws. Terrible. But amazing. That feel of sand sliding through his wounds without slightest hurt.

'I will get you, I will get you, I will get you!...' howled the beast, hitting at him again and again, making him pale even more if not lose all his blood already. Even if he knew a good remark, his head was empty now and it was still not a situation to mock anyone. His hands, even if they stood up on their own, they also swayed as his natural strength kept on bleeding out of him and making the shield shift. Only holding them up in place was tiring like if he had to carry the whole Shukaku on his arms. He felt his senses going numb. Gaara whimpered.

'Don't move, Gaara!...' he rasped, out of breath. Any deconcentration made his arms sway dangerously, and the last thing he wanted was to let the masses of sands to bury them alive and squish. Who knew how many was still there above them after all!... 'I said don't move! Hold on!...' The redhead whimpered, hugging himself to his leg tightly. There, that was good. But then, Shukaku has snickered. It was not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

'So it's the brat that's interrupting you.' it murmured again in that big booming laughter 'I can fix that!' And then, something like an invisible blow got through the shield and made Gaara sway to the side for a moment. Daichi gasped, not being able to change position even for a millimeter.

'Hold on, Gaara!' he shouted, making the redhead shake his head and glue to his leg once again. This time tighter 'Don't let go of me no matter what!'

'Yes, fath-' said the boy and swayed again as the second, stronger blow came, making him let go of his pants. Thankfully, two of the fingers got stuck in the torn hole of the material. Daichi felt the hair on his neck prickling.

'Gaara!' he shouted, glancing at the kid and getting back his attention to the sands above them again and again. 'Gaara, for gods' sake!' The redhead once again shook his head and with a loud cry clasped the leg with both arms, circling it and soaking with tears. But then, the triumphing, booming roar of laughter roared at them from everywhere and in that breathless, impossibly hot for a winter atmosphere, Daichi felt his blood running cold. The monster was already celebrating hits victory.

'The only god here is me!' it howled in glee. Then again a big invisible blow came through the shield, resounding in the lacking air like a bullet that was shot from very far off distance. Gaara looked above for a moment with scared face, frozen in spot. And then, his head fell off on his chest, making his body sway and fall into the bottomless darkness.

'Gaaraa!' shouted Daichi, turning his head toward the black pitch where the body vanished, and then, without one thought, he tore his hands from the sand and followed his son into abyss, letting the sand close the curtain around him, into the black, black pitch.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Drip. Drip. Drip. Water, or?... Itachi slowly opened his eyes. No, not water. Blood. His head was covered in blood. And it hurt. He had to hit himself somewhere quite hard. Kazekage-sama surely had a lot of strength for a man on the verge of death. No wonder they called his hands one of the heaviest on the word. They made you redefine the word 'heavy' in the lifetime dictionary.

Itachi let go of a breath. Everything was covered in dark ginger dust, almost like if a bomb had blew up there. And probably it did. He didn't know, it seemed he had blackened out for a moment. But not knowing what the situation was on the battlefield and laying helpless like a baby was a mistake a rookie made. So, in a breath, he activated his sharingan again and looked around. Gods, the dust was so grand against delicate surface of the eyes. But also, the silence was deafening. Was it the end?... What's happened?... He turned around, searching for chakra signs, noticing Kakashi from not far away, along with Chiyo-sama and Hokage-sama. They were safe. And then…

…oh, there they were, thanks gods.

'Kazekage-sama!' he shouted, getting up from the spot and getting through the cracked ground as quickly as he could 'Gaara-sama! I'm glad that you're safe, what's happened to Shuka-' And then, the words died on his lips. The things he took for Kazekage and his son, were…

…a sculpture. A big gray sculpture made of grey stone, holding up high against something that seemed like big waterfall, also made of the same substance. It was exactly the human size, along with redhead glued to one pant, looking up with fear, as from the big frozen shape eyes and claws of a monster glared at both of them with anger and viciousness. Almost an art. But then…

Was Kazekage-sama jailed inside? He checked with his sharingan. Yes, he could spot the chakra circulatory system and also the beating heart, everything that could be found in a human that was sleeping in deep dream. Gaara's insides looked the same. But then… then it meant they had to free them from that prison!...

'Kazekage-sama, do forgive me my insolence, I'll help you right now!...' he breathed with shaking voice, running up to the figures, that looked even more mighty from close-up (if only it wasn't a living sculpture, even he, numb to art ANBU captain would have to compliment the maker… but he was not going to compliment such horrific statue!) and took out a kunai. Because if he decided to burn up the stone, it could be possible he would also burn the people inside. 'Just a moment, I… do excuse me but…'

'DOOONNNN'T!' howled something just right next to his ear and out of sudden he was on his back again, rolling toward some smaller crack in the ground, tackled like a pup from little kid's hug. 'Don't touch that thiiing! You will kill them all!'

'Wait- wait- Kakashi, shut up!' he yelled back, finally stopping from the rolling and landing just on the grey-haired man 'What the hell!... What do you mean 'kill them all'? They're under that stone, we have to help them-'

'They're not covered in stone!' howled Kakashi back, tearing the kunai from his hand and throwing it away so it was out of reach 'They're made of stone! If you break them, you will kill them!'

'How do you know!'

'Because I can see, idiot!' said the jounin, getting up to the sitting position and pushing him off himself 'Look inside! Don't you see? There's no other innards there beside hearts and circulatory system! What do you think everything else is, huh? Mr. ANBU Captain-sama!' Itachi blinked. Then turned his head in disbelief. And to his worst suspicions, Kakashi-was right.

'How come they're alive then?...' he asked. Kakashi shrugged, seeming to be as helpless as he was here. From not far away, the old woman slowly inspected the sculpture, almost like if she was in museum watching an exhibition. At one point she stopped and squinted her eyes. Yes, that was probably it.

The seal on the man's back glowed in bright violet, not completed but ever so slowly bleeding into the full shape. She didn't know from where he could've gotten the chakra to make it work, even so slowly like that. But if she knew right, that wouldn't end well once this would end.

'Oh, Daichi, Daichi… you child of unfortunate gods.' she muttered and slowly walked away.

As soon as he received the blow, Minato had fainted, so he had been luckily spared the worst part, which was actually feeling bones breaking. He wasn't so lucky now.

'Agh.' When was he, again? He's sleeping. At least he tells himself his sleeping, and by all kages, he's doing his best to appear asleep.

He deserves it. It's been three days of siege, and he's been up nonstop for the first two, unconscious for three hours, then back as soon as the healers patched up his fractured skull. He's only been down for who knows how long (he knows, he know it's been too little time, damn it) and the last he remembers is Yamanaka picking him up before the Fox can break his measly human ribs and crush his heart. Or that's what he's sure Yamanaka is sure of. Minato knows The Fox let them leave, even unconscious, know it to have been grinning at him. Just him. Why, why did he have to be singled out?

Three days, the fox having come out of nowhere without giving them time to do anything (only, had it really? Shouldn't they be all dead by now, if it really had wanted them to?) and shinobi dying left and right, everyone who goes against it… Except for him. He's gone against it time and time again and he's always barely left to rest before being sent out again. Even if he hadn't been the Hokage he does so because by now he is the only hope, and a fake hope is better than nothing when there's nothing else to have. It's a lost cause, and he knows it. Knew it from the first time he felt the restrained chakra and though –unwillingly, like all things he wanted to forget and couldn't help but remember- about the curse Suna's Kazekage has mistakenly unleashed upon his own village.

And who is to blame here? Could someone step up and say who are the ones that unleashed this monster on his life? Would someone please, please come forth and point at some particular person he can see, someone he can touch and torture and choke, so he can at least feel some sense of justice, a twinge of a feeling of retribution for all the losses and all this nightmare he's brows-deep in?

The quid of the question rests in the fact there is no one to be pointed at, and that's the real reason he feels so lost, so frightened, because in his life as a shinobi, things had always been clear and easy. There was always a goal, and that goal involved a target. Sometimes the target was retrieving something or finding something, but more often than not, the goal was only accomplished by eliminating the target. And who can be targeted, when the opponent is a demon spawned from God knows where, a thing with the closest emotions to human feelings are things like hunger and glee? Who can he tear to pieces and use as the world' squishiest on/off button to make thing gone?

He has no one to blame, only all of this choking anger he can't even direct at anything sentient, because, oh… he's sure It is aware of how much he hates it, but not why and not that it even cares at all. The Fox is having fun and that's all that matters to It. And he knows them, just as he's known since the first failed jutsu, that he isn't going to make it out of here alive, that no one will, that no one can stop a demon. That thing doesn't know what being alive means, only limits itself to being and wants nothing more and nothing less. There is no way to kill it.

There is no way, besides seals he is messing with, seals he took from a lab that still reeked of terror and blood and human waste, that cursed lab that was destroyed years ago -but not before Namikaze Minato, current Hokage and youngest Hokage in the history of any country could sneak in and steal whatever seemed worthy of taking. No one knows, and no one can know, because no one wants to know that their Hokage can be such a morally apathetic person, but that's exactly how he is. Minato always felt that the end justified the means, and damn it, if so many people were tortured because a madman of a genius (a genius of a madman?) wanted to see the things he could do, then didn't it make perfect rational and good sense to steal those things and give them some actual positive use?

The seals are good, but like always, instinctively, he knows what needs to be done to fix them. Everything needs fixing and if nothing else, Minato's specialty is seeing the flaws and correcting them in seals. Only this time… This time…? (I laid my eyes on the devil) You cannot kill something that has never been alive in the proper way of speaking. Demons can be tied down, and they could be contained, he is sure of that, but never permanently. And once whatever they were lucky enough to be able to trap it in wore out, broke (died?) then they were all back to square one, with a pissed off creature that had just been set lose, just like Daichi had condemned his wife and village over his own greed and arrogance.

Only this time he is messing with things he doesn't know what really are, and for the first time he is scared. The only way to kill one of these things was to render it mortal, and there are no means to do that. Unless.

'DOOONNNN'T! Don't touch that thiiing! You will kill them all!' When is he, damn it? He knows there is a now and a then, but he's lost any spectrum or ability to distinguish between the two of them. He can feel foreign chakra cursing through his body, an alien but not completely unpleasant sensation, but he can also feel most of the right part of his torso beating in tune with his hand a giant sore and source of agony, knows himself to be burning up from charka poisoning, knows himself to be all right.

There is a way, of knowing, however, and it means looking more into what he is doing, those marks he is thinking about even when he knows it's dangerous to just think about them too much, because he really doesn't know what he is planning. He knows it's a summoning and he knows it is something that has the power to make the Fox mortal and finally rid him and everyone from this menace once and for all. But he doesn't know what it really is, or what will be the price to pay, so he is scared. Like he has never been, and all of it because this idea doesn't feel like it's come from him at all, and he wonders what he's really read, going through diaries with runny ink and dried blood, from things he's stolen from the outsiders without the academy or Kushina or Daichi knowing, things he has figured out and read, and maybe some things he hasn't read as much as been… taken by them?

State your price, he thinks, unhinged from what he knows to be coherent thought, as if he could read the future (which is really the past, the past he tossed down to that darkens within, where all dangerous things to think about eventually ended up for the sake of a sanity that has never felt so frail) as if he had known then what he knows now, he thinks, childishly frightened: And what if it doesn't?

He is aware of a young Uchiha whose name is unimportant right now fighting with Kakashi, but all he can think about right now is about unpaid debts and the prices things have, about promises made and never fulfilled for reason that are still in the dark - B U T O H S O C L O S E T O T H E S U R F A C E O H G O D - ideas and thoughts with minds of their own, independent of if he want to think about them or know about them at all, afraid of a decision he doesn't want to take and that's when he becomes aware (remembers, perhaps?) that Kakashi is, was there then.

'Sensei…?'

And he knows it, then, in that half-assed tent that lets in drifts of air, in his too dry throat, too weary body, too sore bones and that blazing fire that is eating his chest, that is smothering his brain with ideas more bereft of the heathens they fought against than a ninja and this chocking sensation of helplessness. He knows. And he thinks: Don't tell me. Don't tell me, please, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know.

But he's still pretending to be asleep, or maybe he really is unconscious yet not resting because he makes no movement, gives no sign, does nothing to stop the young boy despite knowing that this is it, this is the clash and the final period, and after those words are said nothing will ever be the same again, and he is still powerless to stop him or change the words the white-haired boy is trying to choke out.

'Sensei… It's Kushina-sama.' And that's when then shatters like painfully fake china, like his mind did once before, and becomes now. 'Where do you think are you going?'

And now he is angry, and that's all right. He hardly ever gets really angry, but now he is and is also grateful for it. He is back up, glaring at the little woman as if all of this were her fault, and at least what she's doing right now is. Things aren't going according to plan, Daichi's grandmother is trying to leave and Kakashi and Itachi are going at it like first graders over stolen lunches and everything just makes him that more irate.

'Where do you think you are going!' he repeats demandingly, as if she were her subordinate and someone he could boss around. 'We are going to need a healer and you are the only one we have around so don't think you can just walk away after you have your fun, old lady!'

The old woman has turned around to him, looking at him as if he lost his mind.

'I'm too old for that. Call someone from younger squad.' she said, then she simply walked away to the nearest stone to sit down on it 'I was not having a break like some of us did.'

Minato gawks at the woman a little, as if wondering how does she dare talk to him like that, then looks at the kids. He doesn't know what's happened, or what happened to his sensei, or Gamabunta and his distorted, half-unconscious memories of what the kids were fighting about are not enough to explain what's happening, but the truth is that he doesn't really care about it, either. He's going from pissed off to raging mad, and it's a very strange situation and feeling, but it's strangely pleasant nonetheless. In fact, things start seeing a lot clearer and easier to handle, and the woman is still nearby, so that's all he care s about. That and… kids. With no sense of pride or finesse (none which they warrant, considering how they are ignoring their Hokage), he grabs them both by the back of their shirts and shakes them. Hard.

'Stop it you two!'

Both teens had immediately stopped, shaking in his hands like ragged dolls, clinking with their teeth against each other and making all pains harden by that. But finally, they let go of each other. Once the shock of seeing their Hokage act like that wore off. But since they saw so many things today, it wore off rather quickly.

'He started.' finally said Itachi, pointing at Kakashi. The jounin had shot him a betrayed glance.

'It's because you wanted to do the most stupid thing on the world.' Itachi quieted a bit, looking down.

'I did' he said finally, looking up 'Thanks for stopping me.' Kakashi shrugged.

'No problem.'

Chiyo, who watched them from affair, sighed. It would be almost funny if the atmosphere wasn't so gravy now. It reminded her of old days when Minato was the captain and both his wife and Daichi were under his command. Usually, it was one of those most gentle methods that actually worked on two heatened up redheads. Good, old times.

'That's nice, nice, really.' he said, his tone perfectly flat 'Now, if you two are done bonding, I need you two to focus on this.'

'Shikaku.' he turned back to his communicator, just now realizing it was still on, somehow having miraculously survived the hit.

'Hokage-sama.' was that a surprise he heard on the man's voice? How long had he been down? Moreover, what had taken him down?

'Inform status.' It took Nara half a minute to update Minato on the fact that his sensei was hiding somewhere nursing his wounds, Gamabunta had been accidentally dispelled but even so, was in no position to fight again, and finally, that the thing in front of him was apparently his friend and his friend's son. Wonderful, perfect, really.

'Chiyo-sama, we need to get Daichi more chakra. I'm open to suggestions.'

The old woman sighed again, looking at Minato like if he had already given her his best cake and it came out to be salted or unbaked.

'Why don't you feed his seal with chakra.' she said, looking at the statue with gravy gaze 'Though I don't know what's happening inside there so I'm not sure how it could work… have you done something like that before?...'

Minato stared at her in that same somewhat cold and definitely unfriendly new way he had woken up in, not really seeing her as much as going through his mind to make sure she was right. All he could come up with was seeing the tattoo's in Daichi's back partially covered by the mesh shirt and rather academically thinking how very, very badly he would have liked to fuck the older man there and then. That thought helped nothing at all at this current moment (for some reason, it seemed like he only ever really thought of sex in these situations, how frustrating) and decided to focus on the matter from another angle. He could use his own chakra to make the ink visible, he could use it to control the seal, ergo, more than likely, the thing could easily be fed his chakra.

Easy as pie. Which was actually a bitch to make, he knew for trying these past weeks. The matter remained being the fact that he had no idea what inside that thing was, or if Daichi was even conscious there.

'Right…' Pulling out a scroll from one of the pockets in his vest, he passed it to his student. It contained the seals he had remembered and copied from the secret scroll he had received from the Kazekage with some things he had adjusted. Not exactly the kettle he had promised, but oh, he couldn't wait to see what a kick in the proverbial balls of the creature this would be.

'Kakashi, explain to Itachi how to do this and draw it around the perimeter, with blood. Nara?'

'Yes.'

'Find sensei and send it over here. Oh!" there was a pause. '…if you could start thinking up some at least half credible explanation for all that's happened today that won't get me skinned alive, I would appreciate it. Out.' Turning to the old woman with one of his usual disarming smiles, he chuckled lightly. 'Would you mind sparing some chakra threads, Chiyo-sama?'

'I see that I'm left with no choice here…' muttered the old lady, looking at the blond with something close to observing glare. She desperately wanted to make a joke, but she saw that the situation was far from agreeable to jokes 'What exactly do you want me to do?'

Kakashi nodded to sensei, taking the scroll from him, even if he felt tense when it came to teaching the Uchiha anything. Itachi never was too keen to listen to him, especially once he became an ANBU captain. But alas, in the place they were in, they could do nothing but work together.

'Come, Uchiha.' he said 'I'll show you how this works.'

Itachi shrugged in response and followed. What else could he do? Especially under eye of such nervous Hokage.

Minato stared at the kids go with the same immovable smile.

'Overweight weaver seems to be too busy with whatever it's doing to those two in there, and I'd rather keep it like that till done.' he pointed to the quiet area and the fact both teens had actually gotten quite close without actually stirring the demon. 'I need a line going straight from me to the seal, have it leech my chakra. You can do that with your puppets, so why not transfer it?' he wasn't 100% perfect as far as chakra depletation went, but when the old woman had healed him it had done much more than he would have expected. No wonder she was so renamed even Tsunade-sama spoke highly of her.

Chiyo looked at him for a long, silent moment.

'You're crazy.' she said finally, deciding to let the kid go. If he knew that chakra strings were working on both sides and he could as well had transfer his chakra as had anything transferred up to him that way, she had no other words. In silence, she found a chakra point and jabbed there one of her stings, then walked up to the statue, still wondering how it must've feel to have something so large drawn on her own back. Then, the string was added gently to the grey, cold surface. The connection should've started immediately. She glanced at the blonde. Hopefully, he knew what he was doing…

'Egh.' Minato made a face as he looked at the almost see through line going from his wrist to the statue. 'Is this thing supposed to have a flavor?' Because it tasted. Tasted like ancient blood and dirt. He tried to make a comment describing the particularities from the sensation when he realized he suddenly felt quite drunk and that the world was sliding a little to the right. He'd forgotten how fast could a professional puppeteer could make these things work.

'The only flavor it has is what you want to feel from it.' said Chiyo, looking at the blond with calm face. 'I like the taste of old wood, but I guess feeling ancient blood is not exactly the same… sacrifices, sacrifices.' her eyes landed upon the two, standing in the never-ending battle, connected by one material and yet, completely silent, like of someone had stopped the movie on the camera. Erratically horrific, illusionary convenient. Almost a mirage. Hopefully, the consciousness of both didn't became as silent as their appearances seemed t be. Then, all effort to feed the seal – the mechanistic foreign sign on the body of one – would be useless.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Drop… Drip. Drop… Drip. Running. Step, step, step, step after step, step-step-step-, step-by-step, step-run-step-taptaptap, darkness. Drip. Drop… Drip… Breathing. , the pulse, rhythmical, quick, ba-dump, ba-dump, one, two, three, four, step-step-step-step-step… darkness. Drip… Drop. Drip… Drop…

Sweat. Falling, running, being, wetting, forehead, under his arms, between fingers, on chest, between legs. Glinting, blinking, shimmering, glimmering... cold. Darkness. Drip-drip… Drip-drip… Drop. Drop. Drop. Black!

'Gaara!' he shouted, calling, yelling, desperate, alone. Echoes echoed without echoing, a strange long resounding of what could have been a sound and yet, wasn't. He kept on running. He didn't know when did he start. He didn't know how did he start. The only thing he knew was that he ran. And that he had to move forward. Even if he didn't see anything. Walls, ceiling, even floor – all that didn't exist. He was stepping on blackness that could be dark only because there was no light or because it was black. Maybe it was air.

Or maybe water. It didn't feel warm or cold, soft or hard. And it didn't matter. He kept running. Forward.

'Gaara!' he howled, rasping, coughing, feverish, alone. And once again echoes echoed without echoing and once again nobody had answered. He had to find him, he knew he had to. He didn't know where he was and didn't know how to get there, but he knew he was not far enough, not deep enough. He felt his back bleeding through cold sweat and he knew,, he knew he had very little time…

'Gaara!...' he said, wheezing, hacking, exhausted, alone. And then, finally, he had stopped.

Where was he? He didn't know. All he knew that he couldn't see nor he could hear anything beside himself. No smell or feel has passed through him, no wind or ground has touched his body. Almost like nowhere… Almost like desert.

'If only mother's fan was there…' he muttered, illogical, sarcastic, hopeless, knowing that his comparisons were funny and small '…it would blow the darkness away, just like she did with sands of all Suna.'

In all godsdamned Suna. And then, his hand felt heavy. He looked at it, feeling the cold surface of alumina and blinked, not believing his eyes, but then, not astonished that much at all. Somehow, his question marks didn't really matter in that space, that time, that life. It was exactly this fan. Big, black, glimmering in darkness like a jewel, scrapped on the hand from using and perfectly strong to make a 360 circle, just enough to make the strongest possible wind of all fans. There was even the old touch of fingerprint on the paint, signaling it was hers, only hers…

'Thank you, mother.' he murmured, not really knowing why, and opened it, on full circle, amazed by how it weighted in his own hand, just the same way when he was young, almost like if he didn't grow up at all. Or maybe he was just too weak. He smiled. Or maybe it was because it wasn't really there.

Nevertheless, he bended, the perfect pose for discus throwing and veered to the other side, throwing the wind that nobody in Suna wouldn't fear or be amazed at. The darkness before him folded, bended and blew away like a black curtain from the stage, vanishing in the black and uncovering the blackness. Only with the hidden scene. Daichi smiled, and turned the fan to the side, only to discover it was no longer mother's fan which had been long lost on the eastern shores of the desert, but a small, light and beautifully decorated white fan with three lilac circles, the fan of his father he rarely used s he was never good at the wind techniques. Not surprising at all. Then he rose his head.

'How are you, Shukaku-sama.' he said politely, not mocking, not laughing, giving the proper honors to the grand, mighty statue of monster that wore a big hat and big bottle of sake on its back. This time it was not drinking though, both hands were clasped in a tight clap, almost a still figure 'We finally meet.' The figure moved, smiling with big fangs, its fur frushing lightly, almost too soft for being hard like stone.

'You can do nothing to me, vermin.' it said without opening big, lips-less mouth 'I have a hold on the brat and I will never let him go.'

Daichi's smile had switched off, like a suddenly blown out candle. The eyes glimmered with cold, unforgiving violet.

'So that's why he was not answering when I was calling him.' he said, and turned his body up, straight, like a mere warrior, but then, like the most proud warrior of them all 'Give him back.'

The raccoon had smiled, humorless, mocking.

'No.' it said. And there were no other words. Daichi bended on the other side, another perfect posing of muscles, and veered himself from one foot to another, making another strong blow of the wind. And fur, flesh and grin flew away in strands of sands just like that, uncovering the small body of the boy, who didn't seem to be aware that his hiding was gone.

It took only a moment to jump at the fan that now was bleakly gray, both black and white, both plain and decorated and yet hours to move to the falling body, only to catch him tightly in the arms. And then the fan was gone, suddenly, but not fiercely at all and his feet touched the ground no-ground, the mud, the water, the cake made from both, not wetting but not above the lack of wet at all. Green eyes fluttered.

'Daddy.' said the redhead and snuggled close, the helpless and safe homeless cat he became, the mouse that was in his hand, the little bead made of green and red and a child itself. Daichi's face has lit again.

'Son.' he said, acknowledging and welcoming the hug. And then his son was a bead again. He hid him in the safest place he knew – under his tongue. And turned his eyes to Shukaku. There were millions of them. One thousand to his left, two to his right, another pair of millions above his head and only fifteen under his feet. And then, it was the only one.

'Let's race.' it murmured and moved, making all of them move, but he stood still. His back kept bleeding, bleeding down in violet pattern, he could feel it through cloak that weighted nothing, and he knew it was not a good sign. Then he sunk in the ground, knee deep, with one knee, not even moving his position. Weakness. His leg was weak-ness now.

'No.' he whispered, rising his head. 'Let's fight.'

And he moved forward, catching his nonexistent breath that felt hot against his mouth and cold in his lungs and plunged right at Shukaku. Millions of them had moved and vanished, being sucked into one, the big one, smiling one, the one with golden eyes. And then it turned around.

'Let's race.' it said and flew away, covering floor and ceiling, making him close in a square of sand. He stopped. His other knee sunk in a swampy surface. His second leg was now weak-ness. And Shukaku laughed. He knew it. He knew he had little time.

'Let's race.' he said then, moving his tongue around the bead, showing it to the monster and snapping his mouth shut as the sand had suddenly flew to his mouth, a single claw threatening to pierce it and take it on the light thread of sand. It cut his lower lip. He howled inside as the poison bleached through it, but didn't move one of his teeth to move his jaw. The claw flew away.

'Race it is.' said Shukaku and started running 'Let's race to death then.'

And then, the light fell on the end of nowhere, where an old, hunched skeleton waited, holding an old clock.

'To death then.' he repeated in his mind and the thoughts of his has sounded everywhere. Shukaku smiled. And ran. Daichi followed.

The ground was slick, murky and his legs grew weak, making him lose his balance as his arms became weak-ness, making his back bleed more and the death slowly rise up from the stool, making it younger, healthier, thinner. He saw the clock's dial. The sand was almost gone. Ticked away. He had little time. He had to act. He rose one of his arms up, making the metallic rods grow up from the ground, separating him from Shukaku, but not from his sands. He had to bend as some of it turned toward him, and jump feeling how the it flew against him. And then, he fell forward as one punch pushed him onto the ground, poisoning his left shoulder, making him stay away. The rods stopped. His chest was becoming weak-ness. The clock ticked the sand away. The death's appearance became young and fruity.

Damn it!... He stood up.

'You're losing!' howled Shukaku, smiling at him from the ground and he had to jump, jump to not be eaten and fall on the ankle that didn't respond, making him fall on the face. Something was wrong here. Wrong in the whole thing. Why?... Why were they racing in the place where there were no ends? Why to the death when death was not in front but following him?... He bit on his lips, drawing blood. Shukaku was playing on time. Darn it! 'Let's not race!' he howled, getting up and flashing the bead through his teeth, getting attention of Shukaku immediately 'Let's fight.'

The death bended toward him, looking at him with black hole with vague interest. He ignored the black hole of the face.

'I'm not dying today.' he said with pressure, facing the monster.

'You're already late for not dying.' said the figure. Daichi didn't answer. Now was not the time to speak about his time. This time was the time of fight. And then it begun. He didn't know, he didn't see. The flashes of light were quick and against him, making him feel bruises and blood where he wasn't really bleeding. The weak, stale parts of his paralyzed body didn't feel a thing and then, they were hurt the most, being tender and powerless. The laughter sounded in his ears like wheezing of the wind. He fell on his knees.

'I won.' said Shukaku and smiled at death. Death bended toward him.

'I said not yet.' he murmured and got up, ignoring the rattling bones falling all over the floor, the outraged skull clattering toward him in mute curses. 'Now's my turn.'

'A vermin can do nothing against the hurricane.'

'If only it's the hurricane's shadow, it can do everything.' and he rose his hands. It was fast, invisible to the eye and not surprising to Shukaku at all as he just sat, wagging his tail, slowly being encircled with bars that hadn't ended anywhere, just grew up to heavens that really weren't there.

'The winds of my kind has no shadows.' it murmured happily. He tsked, relocking the hands and making a big, brazen padlock appear on the gates.

'Then let's see what kind of wind is stronger.'

'You are no wind.' said Shukaku, turning to the padlock and frowning, losing the smile. He snickered.

'My name is Rih el Khamsin.' and he moved forward. Step. Step. Step. Drip… And there was no fourth step. His back shone with pain, making him yell and grab at it, feeling as his innards became weak-ness, and that he had no other part to sacrifice. No other part… His heart beat in his head. Not yet!...

'Not yet, not yet…' he muttered and Shukaku repeated, mockingly. 'Not yet, not yet, don't crush the vermin under your foot, fate.' he hissed and opened the golden eyes with joy and glee that returned to them 'You're funny rascal, thinking you can get the brat away from me, funny and hopeless, you will never make it and you will die here, lose the hope!'

The clock ticked. There was almost no sand in it… He felt himself sinking. Not yet. With a big gasp, he got out from the ground and moved on his knees, forward. Move forward. Move forward!...

'Fool!' boomed Shukaku, making his back drop with blood again and fall on his face with gasp, almost letting go of the bead in his mouth. 'Hahaha, a complete idiot!... Don't move forward, you can't make it!...'

'Yes, I can.' he said humorlessly, around the jewel and hid it in his mouth again, moving on elbows again as his feet became numb and stoned, almost like if they were two pieces of rocks 'Laugh all you want, I can sense your fear… you, who never feared anything.'

'I am not scared of any vermin!' howled the beast, losing its smile and frowning in rage. Another blow that sounded like a shoot from affair has hit him on back, making him go flat against the ground. But it didn't hurt that much when his knees and tights turned into stone, it didn't hurt that much, because he knew, he knew that Shukaku was scared and that he was now the one winning, a few steps away, only a few steps away… he started crawling on his elbows again.

'Not until the vermin is bigger than you.' he sneered, chuckling. The bead tingled against his tongue. And that made Shukaku roar. Roar after roar, punch after punch as he crawled forward, turning his body into stone and making it heavier, more useless as his hips became grey, as his fingers had stilled and as his sight shut close, making him blind, blind in the darkness of his own, the one he couldn't escape. But it didn't stop him from moving forward, knowing very well where the cage was, feeling that the time, this little time he had was so little and yet, all he had to have.

'You're pathetic!...' he said as he caught on the bars of the gate and as two hands of Karura caught him on his rock-hard fingers, pleading him to not go forward and not to hurt himself anymore

'My wife… would curse me to go on, only to see me die!'

'Then die, Daichi! Die!' hissed the figure, clasping around his arms and squeezing them, squeezing them to blood and crushing the bones as his lower back has hardened. He felt faint. Only so little… so little… Drip…

…so little chakra… was… left…

'More…' he murmured, climbing on the old bars, touching blindly around the padlock and feeling how the key has formed in it, already struggling out thanks to Shukaku. He caught it, with both hands as another punch fell on his wound, making his shoulders still and his teeth grind against each other. He couldn't let it out from the padlock… he couldn't… move….

'More!...' More chakra!... He used up everything, everything he had, to the last drop, last desperate sources, the last innards he had, making his lungs freeze and his brain go numb, even stopping the beating of his heart. He couldn't hear his own breathing. But he had no more. The key was moved halfway to the side. He froze in silence. End.

'Victory' murmured the monster, smiling triumphantly at him as the bead slowly fell from the frozen face, hanging lowly near the lower lip, crying with high pitched tones.

'Daddy!...' it hollered. Shukaku snickered.

'He is not a daddy no more.' It said, reaching for the glinting object 'Nor a bad father or no one… he is nothing. His time has ended.'

And as said, the last drop of sand had fell from the clock. The death rose up from the ground.

'Send him to hell.' said Shukaku, crouching to look at the bead stuck to the dead face 'He always wanted to be there.' 'The bones clattered. And then, smiled.

'Maybe not today.' it said. And then, the gates boomed, announcing the closing of the door. Shukaku budged, not understanding, then looked down. The key in frozen hands slowly crumbled, vanishing, becoming the light wind…

'You vermin!...' he murmured, frowning, grimacing angrily 'But how! How! Your body is dead!' The hands fell down from the figure, crashing onto the ground. The death chuckled, rising its hands. And then, slowly uncovered the black hole.

'That's because…' it said… '…it was not my time yet.'

And that was Daichi.

'Youuu!...' howled the monster, trashing against the cage, the padlock and the bars, but not getting anything, already jailed and restrained. Daichi chuckled, reaching for the little bead and curling it tightly in his hands as it became mouse, the cat and the child, that held on him tightly and safely, believing, trusting…

'Me.' he whispered, feeling how his sight has wavered and blurred, making the edges of his vision fall apart 'And you'd better remember my name.'

'Your name is vermin!' howled the bijuu in angered hopeless screams. Daichi chuckled.

'No. It's Sabaku no Daichi, the Fourth Kazekage.' he said, squinting his eyes in mimic of Shukaku's usual gleeing expression 'Or, if you'd rather, the child that survived through Rih el Khamsin and became one itself.'

This time there was no coherent answer from the beast as it howled in rage, smudging more, crunching, vanishing like an image on wet sand, carried away by lazy waves of ocean…

'Thanks, Minato…' he murmured with a smile, closing his eyes as he himself started crumbling away 'Without you I wouldn't make it…'

And then, he became one with nothing.

Silence were around them, and silence was sincere. The kids gawked at two figures of stone, making frown that made them look at least ten years older, like if they were watching the movie they didn't like and didn't want to watch. The comments were not nice either.

'The chakra system in legs has stopped flowing.' said Kakashi.

'Now the stoning reached the knees.' added Itachi.

'And tights.' said once again Kakashi.

'The arms are not working.'

'The heart is slowing down.'

'But then, Gaara is perfectly fine.'

'No circulation around the lungs.'

'That's what I call crawling to grave.'

'The heart has stopped.'

'Shit.'

Silence.

'I think he is de-'

'Oh shut up, you two!' shouted Chiyo at last, making both boys cringe and look at the ground. A few morning birds ceased the chirping, scared. 'All you do is yapping like useless pups, if you can't help then at least don't talk!'

'Yes ma'am.' They said in unison, slowly turning off their sharingans and turning heads to the sides. Kids!... Zero tact at all. She looked at the blond and stood up from the stone she was sitting on, knowing that if anything, he was also on the verge of his own strength and couldn't do a thing. In a moment he would become probably the one who will need the chakra transferring. That was enough.

'I'm cutting the thread off.' she said, not even looking at him as she didn't need or want his permission. The thread was her and she was deciding what to do with it, whether Minato liked it or not 'My grandson wouldn't want the pity anyway.' And yes, it was hard and yes, her hand has trembled as she moved it over the thread, but what else she could do?... She lived through so many deaths of her own children… it seemed that her tears dried up too much to even sniff at another loss. But what a pity. It seemed that she was supposed to outlive the whole line of Sabakus. Life could be ironic. Snap. The thread fell down on the ground and dissipated. That was the end.

Minato, who felt like if he'd been dunked head first into the worst tasting bowl of half-solid, tepid jell-o glared daggers.

'Old lady, don't you dare-' but that's as far as he got, because a dry hit to the back of his head sent him forward, only to be caught by strong hands. 'S-sensei…?'

'I'm not having you kill yourself over Suna's business, Minato.' the white-haired man said calmly, holding the blond's body and carefully depositing it in the snow on his knees while Minato stared at him furiously, too dizzy to do anything but glare. The toad sage was holding his side with the hand not using to keep him from falling on his face.

'He did this to himself all on his own and it's no longer your responsibility to fix his mistakes.' he winced at the look the blonde gave him. '...I'm too young to take responsibility for your kid, brat.' At the reminding of Naruto, the Hokage suddenly realized that if Kakashi and Jiraiya were here, then no one he knew was with his son.

'Who...?'

Creak. Kakashi budged, poking Itachi in the ribs. Itachi turned on his sharingan again. What?...

'A crack.' said Hatake 'A crack on Kazekage-sama's figure.'

Itachi held his breath. And then, the crack has deepened. Creak, creak, creak, more, more, more, going up and down, widening on both Gaara's figure and Shukaku's deformed waterfalls, making the dust fall down and cover the place in quicker and quicker drops of grey grains (brown grains?) and covering everything in clouds of suffocating dry substance.

'It all flew apart!' shouted Itachi frightened, looking at the clouds where only sharingan could see. Chiyo's grimace deepened. A spectacular end for a man like him. 'It's destroyed…'

'Does that mean…' added Kakashi in horrified whisper, also turning on his sharingan 'I don't- ow! Why did you do that!' Itachi turned to Kakashi in surprise.

'Did what?' he asked, seeing as the grey haired boy held himself on the forehead.

'Threw that rock on me!' Itachi blinked.

'I didn't throw anything at you.' he said. Kakashi frowned.

'Then…' he muttered.

'It's a shame such a kid like you, being so close to the epicenter of cyclone got no battle wounds.' Chuckled the deep voice from affair 'Here, take it as a honor for already burying me.'

And then, the deeply tarnished, beaten up and wounded figure of Kazekage had emerged from the clouds.

'You look funny without mask.' said Gaara, hanging loosely from the arms of the man that were circled around him, with no sand added, if you didn't count the useless grains that were rolling down from the bruised shoulders. Somehow, the man looked like if he had gained additional beating by just standing frozen in the stone. 'Right, daddy?'

Daichi chuckled.

'Don't fraternize with me so suddenly.' he whispered in raspy tone, blinking his eyes as he cuddled the child a little tighter despite anything he said 'Only because I freed you from a big weaver doesn't mean I'm not a scary monster.'

'I like you more than mommy now.' said Gaara and then shrugged, laying his head down on the naked chest 'Okay, daddy.'

Daichi smiled at him with a little scolding frown. But then, he touched the red hair, he rarely had a chance to touch. Just like when he was born. Beautiful.

'Brat.' he muttered, smiling at him, and then his eyes rolled up to his head and just then, Sabaku no Daichi, has finally rightfully lost consciousness.

The Hokage stared at his ex-teammate in what could only be described as absolute relief. Not that he hadn't known this would work, because it was his plan and Minato's plan had a tendency to work rather well, provided he worked with professionals. And considering they had just defeated the One-tail with two kages, two teens, a middle aged pervert and a giant frog, he'd like to think he'd chosen his professionals wisely.

'I am so going to mock him for this afterwards.' he said to the old woman with a brilliant smile, watching as the kids moved closer to help the Suna Kage and his son. 'Shikaku?'

'Hokage-sama.'

'We are done here.' Oh, those were the most beautiful words he had heard since Yoshino had contracted bronchitis in her last mission and the doctor told him she wouldn't have a voice for at least a week.

'Please inform Sandaime-sama and switch me over to line thirty six. After that, pick up your stuff and disappear, if anyone asks, you were tending to the deer.'

'How troubling…'

'… And thank you for all your help. Feel free to take the rest of the week off, with payment included.' …he was wrong about the most beautiful words. The blond waited a moment for the tactician to change the frequencies they were in, then spoke. 'Baki-san? Namikaze here.'

'Baki here, waiting for orders. Over.' The words were said in unrelenting, steely tone, though if the Hokage could look at him and his little Suna squad of genjutsu users he would probably understand that such shade of skin was healthy only one ninjas living in Amegakure. Thankfully, he couldn't.

'We are done here, everything's all right.' And could he keep the smug tone off his voice? No. No he couldn't. 'Kindly come and remove your stubborn ass of a kage before he dies of hypothermia or someone sees the seals. I'll handle my own people, and you and your team, of course, saw nothing.'

'Understood. I'll be right there.' said Baki and clicked off the communicator. There was only one sickened look between him and all of his squad accompanied with a thumb up, making usually-not-so-pale people let go of their breath and relax against each other. Which meant simply sliding to the ground of more than twenty people. After that, Baki had vanished. Only to appear right next to the already freezing, dirty and sweated body of his own Kazekage.

'My, my, you look like if a bunch of raccoons had run you over, Kazekage-sama…' he murmured, circling the kid standing nearby (only for safety reasons, you never really knew after all) and scooping the body on his shoulders 'Now nobody will be able to say I'm a cold salary man.'

And with one nod toward the blond Hokage, he had vanished. Gaara blinked after him and grimaced.

'Me is sleepy.' he muttered, walking up simply to Chiyo and standing in front of her. It was her who kept him always awake when he had no one else he could turn to 'Granny…' The old woman smiled a little.

'I know a perfect cure for that.' she said and pushed the redhead lightly on the shoulder 'Tag, chase me!' Gaara blinked uneasily as the so usually slow woman had jumped like a desert wolf and started running away with vigor.

'But I don't wanna…' he muttered drowsily, looking after her with distaste. The woman stopped.

'Oh, don't be a pansy! A good run will wake you up enough.' she said and winked at Minato. It was obvious she was not going to run around but lead the child to the proper place and keep him awake long enough for everyone to be ready and fresh to react for any strange symptoms of Gaara sleeping. One never knew how those seals worked anyway. 'Come on, play with granny!'

Gaara whimpered, but the word 'play' seemed to work wonders on his mind. After a moment both of them were already running to the Hokage's mansion. Itachi blinked, losing his sharing.

'To be kid again…' he muttered, sounding like an old grandpa 'Right, Kakashi?...' In the answer, the grey haired nin snored rather audibly. A moment more, the loud thwack resounded in the air.

'What was that for!...' whined the Hatake, looking at the ground with tear-filled eyes 'Sensei. Itachi is being mean toward me again!...'

'Because you deserve it!'

'Enough you two, don't make me treat you like I did my old team. You wouldn't like it.' The older man snorted under his breath. Not liking it would be the understatement of the century. The methods the young Hokage had resorted to keep those two savages redheads focused, and more importantly, tamed had been… Less than orthodox. Word had it that Ibiki himself had adapted some of the most inventive techniques and happily employed them now in information gathering. 'Itachi-kun, come here.'

The younger nin blinked again and walked up, making a serious face.

'Yes, Hokage-sama?'

Once the kid was close enough, Minato reached for him with the hand that wasn't still bleeding heavily and feeling more raw that would be appreciated and ruffled his head affectionately.

'Thank you for all your help, but it would be better for you not to have been here, okay?' he finished with one last pat, once the impeccable ponytail was messed beyond measure. 'But don't be too surprised if there is an extra in your next bonus. Maybe not in paper, but...' And that meant no one in the Uchiha compound would have to know, least of them, the kid's parents. 'I'm in your debt. If you ever need me for anything, you can trust I will do my best to help.'

Uchiha stared back with slightly widened eyes and mouth opened, which was the most shocking expression you could get from the member of that clan. For once, the way his hair were slicked (or not slicked at all in that moment) didn't matter at all. So… extra money?... That was like a sign from heaven, money were all he needed now, every little paper he could get. But could he really… really… He bit on his lip, looking down for a moment.

But no, it wasn't really matter of that kind. He would put his clan to shame if he'd discuss it with highest instances which trusted upon him with it already. He steeled his face.

'Thank you very much, Hokage-sama.' he said, his face serious like at a warrior he was 'I'm deeply honored.' And with that, he had bowed and vanished away. Kakashi looked at the spot with a light frown.

'And me? Will I get any extras?' he asked almost with a puppy-whining tone, overbearing a little the usual ninja-Hokage border 'I was there too and I even helped taking care of you, sensei!...'

Minato turned towards the older ANBU captain and chuckled lightly, nothing but affection in his eyes.

'Where's my baby?' said affection was kind of missing from his voice. Jiraiya immediately paled and looked at the younger nin in open panic.

'Er…'


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine: Fall like a domino

'What's happened?'

Naruto was shaking the older boy so hard the both of them were in danger of falling down from the roof, not that he seemed to notice either that or Hinata's desperate hold on the back of both their shirts to prevent that.

'Naruto-kun, please calm down!' Naruto chose to ignore her, because it wasn't her father down there, next to something he had never seen before, something that looked quite dangerous and felt horribly worse.

'What's happened Neji, is my daddy all right?' Hizashi had, true to his promise, left Naruto in the hands of his wife before returning to the site, and Hotaru had, in turn, ushered the barely calmed blond to where the heiress and her cousin were studying their lessons. Said lesson had immediately been called short with Naruto convincing them to go up and use their bloodline limit to try and tell him what was happening, but Hinata's wasn't developed enough to see at such distance yet.

'I'm… not sure.' said Neji, squinting with his eyes as the things played out before his eyes '…all was so strange… almost like if someone had sucked the cyclone inside himself… but I can see Hokage-sama standing out there healthy.' One finger pointed at the distance where nobody who didn't have a byakugan couldn't see, but Neji didn't seem to be aware of the fact that Naruto didn't have it. 'He seems to be tired… but healed and okay.'

'Really?' the blond asked desperately. 'Really, you are not lying to me?'

'Neji bro wouldn't lie!' the short-haired girl protested, giving the both of them a good yank that placed them at a less dangerous distance of the edge. Neji blinked once, twice. Using byakugan for so long and such far off distance really was tiring him already.

'Yes, I'm sure Hokage-sama is all right.' he said. Actually, to him it seemed he was perfectly healthy, only drained out of chakra. Unlike other people who seemed to be bruised and wounded. Naruto looked off to the distance, as if he could activate some sort of bloodline jutsu by will alone, but saw nothing other than an actually better view of just how destroyed the immediate area close to his house was. But… his skin didn't feel so bad anymore. He felt better, too, like if he was back to normal. With a great sigh, he sagged down, leaning his back against the older kids. Neji finally had deactivated his eyes.

'I think it has ended.' he said simply and turned to the blond 'Let's go to eat something, Naruto-sama? I bet everyone will be with us shortly.' Actually, he wondered about the fact when Gaara would be visiting again so they would be able to play together in fours as promised, but after such a battle he doubted it would come anytime soon. Some things were like that after all.

'I don't want to eat.' The blond protested, not moving from his position. 'I wanna go home and see my daddy.' Hinata tried again to activate her byakugan, but didn't have to try such distance as her cousin was. She could tell by less than a kilometer that quite a number of shinobi were making their way to the area, even if their chakra paths were a blur from this distance.

'I think he's going to be busy for a while, Naruto-kun.' she said gently, getting up and dusting the knees of her pants. 'Come on, maybe we can find some ramen in the upwards.' Of course, finding instant ramen in the Hyuuga household was pretty much like finding a dust of coal falling from the sky along with the snow that kept steadily falling. But at least the search would keep her friend entertained for a little while until someone came to pick him up.

#+#+#+#+#+#

It was a pretty fresh midnight. The moon shone over the horizon mightily, waving through the endless sea of stars that majestically followed. He breathed with full chest, feeling relaxed and watching the desert with satisfaction. Nowhere were such beautiful nights as at Suna. Nowhere.

'Kazekage-sama?...' said the moon gently, making him open his eyes for a moment 'Oh sleep, you, the meeting is tomorrow, rest while you can.'

'Buh.' he said politely and turned around to go back to his room. Actually, sleep was not a bad idea. But then, he saw Mercury sliding through the midnight air and forgot about the whole thing. Chiyo sighed, looking at Daichi smiling at her drunkenly.

'Did you really tell him he has a meeting with Konoha's council tomorrow?' Baki nodded. Chiyo frowned again.

'He 's looking like if the council was going to give him a cake with tea tomorrow.' Baki shrugged and wrung yet another piece of rag of cold, med-filled waters of unknown species (to him). Kazekage went through so much the past hours that for him he could as well dream about dancing in tutu for all he cared.

'Maybe they will.' he said finally and left the room. Speaking of that, he also needed a rest…

Minato knew that if Chiyo hadn't healed his jaw, someone here would have. Even so, he couldn't help wishing she hadn't so he could have just done the same as the Kazekage and gone home to sleep that had never felt more deserved than now. But could they let him rest a bit before starting to torture him? No, they apparently couldn't. They had barely waited for a medic nin to wrap his skinned hand and other minor injuries before dragging him to the council room. If he hadn't been Hokage and perfectly entitled to sitting down without asking permission, he doubted he would have even gotten it. If it hadn't been because Sarutobi-sensei had come over to 'find out' what had happened, Jiraiya and Kakashi would probably also be there repeating the same things over and over.

Which weren't that many.

'I was having a friendly sparring match with the Kazekage. Gaara-sama misunderstood the situation and the one-tail reacted badly to what it perceived as danger.' One would think two sentences weren't that hard to digest.

'And you expect us to believe that's what happened?'

'Yes. Because that's what happened.'

Kind of. Sorta. Not really, but at least it was a simple enough concept and easily could be corroborated by what had actually happened. As far as Baki and his ninja were supposed to know, Daichi and Gaara had come over for social pleasantries. Kakashi lived in the house and Jiraiya was splitting his time between living there, with Sarutobi sensei and wherever else he decided to go when he didn't want to be found. Wrinkles on the old face of Homura had deepened.

'And who let the one-tailed host be so close around the place of training grounds? As far as I remember we let him be held around the household of yours and the place where the… thing had happened was quite… far. Can you explain this inconvenience that no jounin should do?'

'The actual start of the match was quite closer to my residence, Homura-san.' The blond replied smoothly. Covered in snow or not, the first marks of the moment where Gaara had been possessed by Shukaku and started to attack should be noticeable. What a great excuse to explain those. 'Kazekage-sama and I retreated deeper into the forest to drive him away from my son and the house. The One tail followed.'

'How clever of you.' said Homura and leaned back on his chair, putting his fingers in a pyramid of wondering 'And how smart to react like that. Why did you not use the same smart cells to not start a fight near the house with a guest? How come you arranged that friendly sparring match just right there? That's not what a Hokage would do.'

Blank eyes glanced from above the glasses at the fellow team partner. Sarutobi had sat in silence, smoking his pipe with much bigger interest than it should have obtained.

'I saw no reason to do it anywhere else, as it was not supposed to be such a great deal as it ended up being.' if the man's question had caught him a little off hand, the Hokage gave no proof of it. If there was one thing he had learned from his wife, that was lying on the spot more convincingly than it should be allowed. 'Kazekage-sama and I actually had a match while in Suna, and Gaara-sama didn't react one way or other.'

Which… wasn't a lie, either.

'It was a danger to bring that child here to start with.' Utatane scoffed 'We have enough danger with the Nine-tails, what were you thinking, allowing that child to come here?' Didn't the blond man see what a danger was to have two Ichibi in such close proximity?

Blond's eyes flashed dangerously, Naruto always being a sore spot between them. Ever since the attack of the nine tails and Minato's release from the hospital, the Hokage had started a cold war between the council, denying them as much information regarding what he had done to his son and actively prohibiting as much of their influence on the little blonde's life as it was possible of him.

'The only danger here was Gaara-sama himself, and understandably, Kazekage-sama couldn't leave him alone when coming over.'

'Weren't you the ones who wanted me to get out of here and start working on my good relations with fellows villages?'

'No one said you should start with Suna.'

'No one said I shouldn't. And Suna's Kazekage was my teammate for over five years and I have not seen him since my wedding.' The blond replied calmly. 'If I am to meet with other kages, wouldn't it be advisable to do it with the ones I can actually get along with?' he looked down at the bandage covering his right hand and started playing with a loose end on the bandage. 'Suna is in a good economical position right now, according to the reports. Politics asides, I thought it would be a good moment to restart trading.'

'For what, sand and sunbathing?' muttered Homura ironically, then waved his hand. It didn't matter that much after all, all countries had their advantages and disadvantages and that was not the point of this talking 'I'd say for a Hokage with such experience you seem to behave like if you knew very little of how the stage works. Did you really had to invite them over and made that aggressive man bring even more aggressive monster with him? Such things could have been done without putting the beast into the line of politics at all. And now… who knows how badly it could have ended if it wasn't you and Kazekage-sama sparring but a pair of inexperienced chuunins. Do I really need to remind you how it was when Nine tails went on rampage?'

'Oh, I would love to hear your take on the battle, Homura-san.' the blond purred. 'Considering you weren't even there to begin with, I'm sure it will certainly be something worth of hearing.'

'It's not about me being there or not.' said the man impatiently like if Minato was a nasty kid who didn't want to stay on the topic and needed to be scolded 'It's about your lack of thinking right here and right now. This could have really ended in something just as bad, as every bijuu is a hostile beast. It's outrageous for you as a Hokage to put Konoha under such danger when this village is what you should care about the most, before any other things.'

'Yes, of course it isn't.' the blond chuckled amiably, and rally, only because Sarutobi took that moment to cough rather openly, which reminded him that these sort of discussions usually ended with a lot more hours dedicated to discussing semantics and neither council and Hokage on speaking terms for at least a week. And he had given Shikaku the rest of it free.

'On regards of One Tail…'He tugged at the bandage a bit more and finally caught the lose end where it was supposed to go. His hand still burned horribly, but now it was just because of the salves they'd put on it. 'I actually allowed it because I was confident in my ability to seal it.'

To define the looks they gave him as incredulous would be the understatement of the century.

'The host for the One tail is already merged with it, so there is no need to place the beast in a- an object…' _Sacrifice_ had been the first word that came to mind, with all it's terrifying connotations (Anything. Anything you want.) '… and sealing it for the rest of the time it remains in Konoha wasn't that complicated.' That got their attention, of course. Bless their old greedy little hearts, he could hardly mention the 's' word without the dark haired man starting to slobber.

'Sealed it…?'

Minato refrained from saying something sarcastic regarding their age and apparently rather limited knowledge regarding ninja techniques.

'Yes.'

'How?'

'Excuse me?'

'How did you do it?' Minato gave him a smile that looked nice enough, but that his teammates and teacher might recognize as the one that meant the blonde was wondering if the IQ of the person he was talking to should even manage to reach two digits or if he should give up and measure it with fractions.

'…with a seal.'

'What seal?'

'That's a hidden technique of my own, Danzo-sama.' the Hokage replied calmly. 'I don't think it's appropriate for you to ask me to reveal them.'

'That technique belongs to Konoha.' the man spat irately. 'Those seals are the only hope we have against the Nine tails, it's your duty as Hokage-'

'To ensure the village's safety, yes.' The blond interrupted, still looking calmly at the man. 'I never said I wouldn't share my techniques with it.' he smiled. 'The seal I created for Nine tails, as we have covered before plenty of times, is safe. Jiraiya-sensei can testify to that. As for the techniques… When the time is appropriate, I will make sure that Naruto learns them from me- I also plan to start teaching Kakashi-kun some of them soon, so please rest assured the village will have my techniques at its disposal.'

Homura coughed, feeling a little phased by what was said and not expecting such an answer. Now the blond was starting to press on that nicely put sabotage he always did, which meant 'keep Naruto safe or else.' He really had no answer on that as in his opinion the little kid should've been sealed in the deepest basement with chains if that could help keep Konoha safe and under control. But he doubted Minato would be happy to hear about that.

'I see… keuh, yes…' he muttered, backing away from the battlefield. At least Sarutobi could say something to that, right? But the man was sitting on the table and observing dots on the ceiling like if there wasn't anything more interesting at the moment than just how many were there. Quietly, he added to his 'to do' list to repaint the room.

Minato kept inspecting his bandages to keep himself from actively staring at the elders, considering that save from Sarutobi-sensei, he would have been perfectly happy with having them turned into jerky for the Inuzuka dogs. He let time pas. When no one said anything for over five seconds, he considered a good moment to change topics.

'On regards of the reports I mentioned from Suna.' he finally looked up, his expression again relaxed. 'It's been confirmed they were posing as Konoha shinobi. Sensei thinks it might be an attempt from Oto to bring frictions between our villages.'

Homura raised his eyebrow, but didn't take on the topic much. He knew how harsh it could be for the one who brought the one who made the Otogakure.

'Yes, we know Otonins can be problematic.' he said carefully 'Why do you think it's from Otogakure?'

'Sensei's contacts in Ame.' The Hokage said softly. How and when did Jiraiya get this pile of informants, he didn't know. 'Apparently they were seen over there and displayed typical techniques from Oto when confronted.'

And as far as politics were, that wasn't by far something that could be considered solid proof, but if one added all the circumstances... Too many coincidences.

'I wanted to suggest assigning teams to regularly patrol the borders. '

Homura coughed again, tossing a glance toward the other man at the table. Sarutobi looked back and then at Minato. It wasn't an easy topic for him.

'I guess… we can send some.' he said finally, looking at Minato with a little sour face 'If you really think we should…'

'I think that if they are gathering at the borders and not openly attacking, it must be because they are planning on something.' The blond replied blandly. 'Considering they are copying our headbands, I don't think it's exactly for anything related to immigration.' he shrugged. 'At any rate, the least we should do is warn the other countries that there are unknown nins impersonating Konoha shinobi, just in case they decide to frame us for anything.'

The elders looked among each other for a moment, before nodding.

'We will discuss this matter latter. I trust the Kazekage won't be extending his stay any longer?'

Minato smiled.

'After what happened, I doubt that. He will probably be leaving in a day or two, or as soon as his medic sees fit for him to make the trip back.'

'Then go help him pack.' said Homura, waving his hand at him again 'The sooner he leaves the better, maybe this uncomfortable accident wouldn't be blown out too greatly if he wouldn't have to look at what's happened for too long. You may go now.'

'I'm sure he'll have his nin repair the worst of it…' the blond said with a small chuckle. 'I will see you next time, Danzo-san, Homura-san, Utatane-san. Good night, Sarutobi-sensei.'

With a bow, the blonde retired from the room, not looking back, and leaving the elders in uncomfortable silence.

'…that child is a danger.' Utatane said suddenly, in the now It was hard to discuss the affirmation. As a new Hokage, Minato had been a lot more inclined to listen to them and actually welcome their guidance on village-related matters, but after the whole incident with the Nine-tails…

Nowadays, they were lucky if the blond dignified himself with openly telling them anything, and if it hadn't been his distaste for them didn't extend to Sarutobi, they would probably have been left on the dark of much of the blonde's last on-goings. The worst part of it was that despite the fact that Minato had turned out to be unpredictable in certain matters, and downright dangerous on others, especially related to his son, the Hokage was immensely popular. Disliking his son or not, the villagers almost unanimously adored their Hokage, ninja from other nations feared him and their own Daimyo had never made an effort on regards of how much he favored the smart and good-looking blonde, especially after he successfully managed to seal the Nine-tails.

Sarutobi had only smiled and put the golden pipe away. Finally.

'Maybe he is danger…' he said and knocked with the object against the counter, making the ashes fall from it '…but I can't recall any more restrained danger in my life. If he wasn't loyal to Konoha things wouldn't be pretty. We should be happy he is, right?' And not waiting for responses, the Third Hokage had walked away.

Once outside, Minato let out a long breath to force himself to relax, using the hand that didn't feel like if he's dipped it in paint thinner to rub the back of his neck. Meetings with the council, almost invariably ended up with him tense in ways that's still managed to surprise him. Most of his life, he had never really cared for things enough for them to upset him. Hate was too much a big thing for him to feel appropriately, and the open hostility that trio awakened in him… He sighed, enjoying the sudden gulp of cold air despite the fact it was so cold it make his teeth ache lightly. He wasn't dressed appropriately for the climate, either, having lost his white jacket during the squeamish but the jounin vest was an appropriate enough protection at the moment.

What a day. What a horrible, long, extended nightmarish day. He hadn't felt this taxed since the last small war with Lightning country. But at least he was alive, walking by his own means, with no losses to account to… and he'd managed to create a seal that could partially block a bijuu at distance. How many shinobi could do that? Even that thought wasn't really enough to lift his spirits, and if he wanted to do something about it, he might as well get home, make sure that baby was okay, check on sensei and make sure he was resting and not trying to get past parental block on the TV, have shower, maybe eat something… sleep… How horribly dull.

Pulling out one of his specially crafted kunai, he decided that if he wanted to lift his spirits he might as well do something that would ensure he would at least enjoy that interminable line of chores. One teleportation plus a genjutsu later, he sat next to the sleeping redhead, ruffling bed-mussed hair that was the impossible color of dried saffron flowers.

'Hi.'

Daichi, who was about to make a conventional pact of no-aggression with little green people from one of the stars he kept looking at from the rooftop of his house got a little shocked when around the mouse-squeaking one of them suddenly spoke up in normal human voice with Konohan accent. He turned to him, hanging a piece of yellowish paper and threw the inking pen at him and mumbled something about him wanting to sign it with some normal letters, like… Miyamoto maybe, when he realized he hadn't thrown a pen because he hadn't got any and that he was actually pushing the piece of his quilt into the green alien that was actually pretty earthish.

Then he blinked his eyes, realizing that it was not only an earthian but also a very attractive male blond who showed up from who knows where and why on his bed when he was in this bed. As far as he could have smelt it was not his own house after all. But he wasn't so sure yet. Despite everything, he smiled.

'…hi.' he said back, for once in life feeling strange for having dreams when no real people had made their existence real. His dreams were rather reticular when it came to this. And then he forgot about all that because it didn't really matter as the blond was acting so nicely out of sudden. The blueness was very magnetic in the overshadowed side of the bed. Without much thinking he caught on the stroking hand and closed his fingers over it, making it lay near his collarbone unmoving. It was good to feel the heat of that palm so close.

'Recovered already?...' he muttered, playing with moving his fingers along with it, feeling it was not so warm actually 'Those old geezers surely must've taken your time, your hand is cold as the air outside.'

'Oh, you have no idea.' the blond said calmly, not really wanting to touch on the topic, as he'd come here exactly not to talk about the matter. Not because he couldn't exactly discuss Konoha politics with Suna. Because he wouldn't do that either way, but even if he had felt like doing it and nothing about village safety had prevented him from it, he still wouldn't have wanted to. He used his thumb to brush the collarbone and the bit of exposed chest he could see. Beautiful skin really, despite all the cuts and scars littering it. He had always liked Daichi's skin. 'You okay?'

Daichi had snickered. The touch surely did feel nice, even if it was so brief. It was almost like if Minato was juggling with the sensations now.

'As much as I can be after a fight with a fat raccoon.' he said and brushed one of the reddish dots on his skin. It felt almost amusing at how it fell off and covered with tiny droplet of blood only to become still later 'A few scratches that needs more healing, but beside that my chakra system will need some more stroking. I'm not so easy to kill, you know that.'

Then his smile had dimmed as the captive glance was cast among the healed jaw and covered neck.

'And how are you taking your meds?' he asked with the slightest edge of a concern which he couldn't hide, because inside the image of the blond laying lifeless on the ground was still too fresh to him to take it easy 'Looking so good already, lucky brat.' Then the other hand has reached out to tap against the place where it was broken previously in a mocking manner. But only when he heard no hiss of pain, his gaze has finally calmed down. Minato was healing. That was good.

"That's because I'm your granny's favorite.' the blond said smiling playfully, his hand moving a little higher and stroking the lower part of the redhead's jaw, ducking his own and nuzzling against the hand like a demanding cat. 'And you dared mock me when I started cooking for her? See how it pays off, I can actually stand on my own.' His smile changing to something a little softer and a lot warmer, he finally stopped the stroking, leaving his hand where it was. 'Don't worry about the chakra. One more seal and you are going to be able to do the whole raccoon castration with less chakra than your Khamsin takes.'

Daichi had gladly stroked the side of the blond's face as the skin and blond strands felt wonderfully soft and warm against the harsh insides of his hand. He rarely came into contact with animals that lived for hand-petting, mostly choosing ninja animals over them. But if they felt like that, he wouldn't mind buying a bunch of yellow, blueyed cats and carrying them on his hands whole day long.

'Gran just likes you for your looks.' he muttered, watching the blond, not really noticing the touch even if it indeed, indeed was nice. Where it was going he had no idea, but he was not going to think much about that. His eyes were too preoccupied with watching the face of the man. It was… beautiful. In his own exotic kind, of course. But that was just what he liked. Pretty…

He could just stare at him all day. He knew he could. He did that before. And somehow, he felt he was not too old to do that again.

'One more awful stingy tattoo from those brute hands of a smith, yes?' he said, moving the blond strands from the blue eyes in a manner one would think he was tending a newborn. Quite funny for a man whose hands were known as one of the heaviest in ninja world 'I don't know if only one castration would be enough for me as a gratification.'

'And my cake. I'm actually not bad at all at baking, who knew?' As a team, he'd only been too glad to leave cooking for Kushina, male chauvinism be damned. If he was half as bad as Daichi near a pan, he hadn't even felt like giving it a try besides ingesting soldier rations. 'Be happy then, this won't require one bit of demon blood, you can keep it for one of Suna's endlessly amusing torture sessions.'

Because if it had had that effect on Daichi, on whose blood was closest and who actually had a body conditioned to withstand the worth of poisons, it didn't really take a genius to see what it would cause on a normal person. It made Minato wonder enough to want to actually see the results…

'Unless your weak, Suna-nin body can't handle common ink…'

Daichi's lips had curled into a common chuckle of his as he caught the held hand with a little more strength, showing nothing more than how sure he was. He lifted his chin cockily.

'Bring it on.' he muttered, looking from above at the man even if his position was far from 'above' now. But years of experience made him train such abilities to perfection. 'I'm not afraid of common ink, even if it's your old sensei jabbing it in.'

The blond gave the older man a half-serious reproving look.

'You should be grateful Jiraiya-sensei agreed to help.' he squeezed the redhead's hand back and wished he'd dare use the one wrapped in bandages so he could get to touch the other more. 'Without his help none of the seals would be half as effective, and I'm not even going to touch how long it would have taken me to get those tattoos done. I'm surprised he agreed at all.'

Because it was no secret that Jiraiya disliked the current Kazekage as much as he could dislike someone without actively trying to harm that person. Minato wasn't even sure why, provably just people that brushed each other the wrong way.  
'Even so, this one won't take as long as the others. If you want to come over tomorrow at night I can finish it then.' he smirked a little. 'I'd invite you to lunch, but knowing the council, they'll keep you on their gritty claws until you spit out the truth.'

'Which in this case amounts to the fact you came over to talk and brought your kid, we decided to spar, Gaara-sama freaked out and accidentally unleashed a bit of the one tail, retreated the woods, and -awesome kages we are- we had the situation controlled in five minutes, flat.'

He made a flourish with his right hand, grinning a bit as the movement made it start hurting again. 'I made a seal, you didn't see it, and the mess was made by the cyclone and will, of course, be straightened out by our Suna guests as a gesture of goodwill.'

'Yes, I should be thankful for old fart for existing, I know.' said Daichi still smiling as he pursed his lips a bit. Now, he really wasn't going to be no matter what Minato said, unless the man would fall down the stairs and hit the head quite profusely. Only if amnesia took some of his behaviors maybe he could accept the fact he never liked him being around (like if it was the matter of his at all!). He looked at the tips of blond hair and stroked them playfully, like if he was checking the fluffiness of the hair. They were nice. Not as soft as woman's, but still nice. He wouldn't change for anything else. He closed his eyes for a moment and opened them, looking at the blond with playful smile.

'At night?... My, such a busybody you are to ask me to come at such late hour, Mi-na-to-kun…' he murmured, his insides already shifting at the hidden suggestion. He didn't know that Minato became so… bold at this side while they haven't seen each other. Last time he remembered, any suggestion usually led him to blank face and that was probably a very camouflaged shyness creeping out. When that cute little boy who had more voids in his emotional training than a piece of rock became so straight-forward?... He felt like if he missed out something greatly.

'Don't think I will be talking to your old council for longer than few seconds, I don't find any fun in those people… they're too soft for a normal comeback.' he muttered, getting back on the political track. Maybe not too soft for Konoha – but in comparison to barks he heard at home they were like whining of puppies. Suna council knew it had to play hard if it wanted anything from a human who was hard as rock. 'And about a seal… that's too bad, I wouldn't mind a lunch actually.'

And not because he was a greedy little monster who loved Konohan's soft and completely unhealthy food – but because he wouldn't mind having some occasion to store so more memories. To watch him eat. To watch him drink from a wine glass and to use the classic cutlery. To make memories he could remember once he would be back to lonely house. And that date was not far away. He moved his hand from hair and smudged it along the skin of a cheek. But how could he say no to that pretty face.

'But if you'll arrange something I might actually hang around for a minute or two.' he said, then moved his fingers even lower, hooking them at the brim of the vest and ungluing it form the body for a moment to leave it alone a second later. Minato had warm skin under it. It meant the cloth did what it was supposed to do. Good. 'You know how it is with sick people.' he muttered, looking again into blue eyes 'We need to be hosted with the best we can have or we might feel even worse.'

'Ooo, will you call them peasants? I love it when you do that.' Not that he'd heard Daichi call anyone a peasant in a really long while, but for some reason he had always found terribly funny whenever Daichi started a verbal fight with someone (more often than not, that someone had been Kushina) and for some reason he seemed to be convinced that the winning argument for any topic of discussion consisted in 'What do you know? You are just a peasant.'. In fact… Hadn't he stopped doing that once he had actually said that to Minato and the blond had had a fit of laughter that lasted five full minutes? Or maybe he'd chased him about a month asking him to say it like that again…

The blond looked out at the dim light that was mostly covered by the curtains.

'And it's technically early, you know. Past midnight and all that… If you finish early, feel free to come by, though I will probably be at the office then.' Hokage duties and all that. If it hadn't been so taxing, he'd find ironical how his signature seemed to be what caused the village to move around. It seemed it was needed for absolutely everything. He was pulled out of his thoughts at the feeling of the redhead's hands on his clothing, slipping under the material of his vest. He looked down at the hand, then back up at its owner, eyebrows high in an amused expression.

'Oh?'

Daichi's eyebrows had frowned a bit, though none of the smile had dimmed down.

'Maybe yes, maybe no.' he murmured carefully. He was far too vigilant to call people peasants now, much more than in the past. It always resulted in strange effects, and when he was laughed at the face… oh, he remembered how he was laughed at by Minato. He felt like a complete idiot who made an unintended joke. He couldn't have lived it down for another half of year. He straightened his face.

'I doubt that packing will take me that long. Even if I do it all by myself.' True, he had a lot of things to pack and so had his ninjas, but till midnight?... He doubted that. He'd probably become bored sooner than later and go out to sneak around this cold country. He hadn't been there often, so… he smiled.

'I mean that for strict tastes I have I like them fulfilled.' he muttered and climbed up on his elbows, to not keep on being stared down. Holding the face in cockish turn was straining the neck actually. Now he could at least change the position. 'So if you want to play a host, be a good one.' And with a smile, he tugged the face closer to kiss the corner of the lips. 'Or would you rather stay and start doing it now?'

The blond pulled away just enough to give the older man room to straighten into an upright position, still looking like if he was having fun with what was happening.

'Good question.' he said lowly, tilting his head so the angle was right to press his lips against the other. Right. Daichi might think that he was leaving tomorrow, but that only would depend on if the climate allowed it. And more importantly, if he was rested enough to make the trip. He had no doubt that by the time they crossed Ame and the climate changed again to the hellish degrees that the Suna bastard was accustomed to, he'd be able to feel much better, but until then, he didn't want to have him stranded in a snowstorm after taxing himself like he had less than half a day ago.

He'd just have to do the political thing and convince Dai to stay another day or two. Sounded like a plan. Smiling against the roughened lips, he licked them playfully.

'You need lip balm, Kazekage-sama.'

'Bite me.' answered Daichi, pushing the blond's face to the side with hand, not hard, but harsh enough to make it turn. As playful as it was it was actually quite rude told to the leader of the village whose one of the most important issues was using good oils or he'd wrinkle like an old prune on the first day. 'It's not my fault that it uses up so quickly in this freezing climate.'

But then he again turned blond's face to himself and reclaimed the kiss. It was a pleasure of high standards and he felt like if he was starving for it for the half of his life. Technically, it was just that much – not that he cared for counting it up now. He broke the kiss again only to take a breath and lean down again, grabbing the blond more toward his side. It was heavy to have such a man laying on him nonstop. When did that small, cute boy built up so much heaviness?...

He broke the kiss again, breathing into the air again and laid his hand on the blond's eyes. His stinging nose and quickened heartbeat were already signing he was crossing the line of being patient and impatient. No good. He had to live that down, without man looking at him with the eyes he couldn't tear his own for a moment. But that didn't stop him from stealing two more blind kisses.

'You taste strangely.' he managed to say out finally, after swallowing the saliva in his mouth 'Next time you could bring me some of that food, it tastes like something I could actually have for dinner.'

'I just have… your best inter… est at heart.' The younger man managed to chuckle between kisses. He waited a moment while Daichi covered his eyes, for some reason not doing anything or other, just hearing the other breathe a little faster, just like him; then reached to pull the hand down. 'That's odd… I thought you didn't like sweets.' Because that's the last thing he remembered placing in his mouth, Kazekage's tongue aside. He'd sneaked one or two from his secretary's desk before being dragged into the council's room. Unlike Daichi, the Hokage had a sweet tooth and would live on sugared confections if that had been nutritionally possible.

He didn't wait for an answer, as he wasn't really looking for one, simply leaned against the older man and kissed him again, stroking his nails down the strong neck and the beginning of the muscles of the back. Beautiful skin, really. Kids would be lucky if they inherited it.

Daichi had tensed up. Sure, the another kiss was just as good as previous ones, maybe even better as it was more welcome. But it was completely not helping it. The gas he had just started turning down once again was back at the stronger flame and more, he felt like it started going even more up. All because Minato's hands were now touching him right at the vulnerable place, where it was easy to end his life – and that meant snap his neck. He was not defending himself from this as he had already laid trust on the blond, but that kind of touch was much more thrilling than others. Which meant also much more… exciting…

That was going too far… And yet, when he grabbed the blond by shoulders to push him away actually he was the one to bring him even closer and kiss those lips even more feverishly. Gods, they tasted sweet. He rarely had anything sweet in his life. Maybe that's why the faded taste was so intense to him. He breathed into the mouth, feeling the need to breathe, but pushing it away as the second important thing in life. The first was the hot wet and completely warm mouth of Minato.

He was probably developing sweet tooth now. Shame. With a less than half-controlled grunt, he finally turned the blond to the side and pushed him away, gasping. Gods, his heart beat so fast. If that was beginning of the ride, how was everything else?... He couldn't even imagine.

'Okay. Enough already.' he muttered and leaned over to steal another kiss 'I'm serious.' and another. 'Now.' and one more… He wasn't sure to whom he was talking now. But his hands seemed to have a life on their own and stayed glued to the back of Minato, running up and down around the clothes. So it was probably them.

Minato wanted to laugh at what the other man was doing, which probably was talking to himself, but he was too busy kissing and being kissed to be able to make much noise with his mouth. When the redhead had tensed up he'd wondered if he'd maybe pressed on something that was still sore or wounded, but the redhead seemed to get over whatever it had been quite fast… The only problem now was the way the redhead was acting now.

Having had enough of Daichi trying to be bipolar, he leaned more into him, using his weight and more advantageous position to push the older man on his back again, bracing himself mostly on his right elbow and using the other hand to move down the Kazekage's neck and chest, mostly over the clothing, though he certainly didn't shy away from touching bare skin when it was possible to get under it. The rest of his attention as dedicated exclusively to devouring the redhead's mouth.

Daichi had grunted again as he was pushed on his back, not expecting such lack of submissiveness in the man whom he knew that was rather close with his reactions to the rugged doll than such a demanding bastard. He was about to start the scramble for a more comfortable position in bed as he was not used to have so little control, but then Minato got close and… he had forgot about the world. It would be strange if he wouldn't – his sensed has clouded up, abused by such a sudden, over sexual act he hadn't done since… since… he couldn't even remember when he was having sex last time.

So maybe that was the reason why he was feeling everything so intense now. But how could he not when he had finally got to kiss the mouth he always wanted to pet? He closed his eyes, losing himself in the kiss and leaving his fingers closed over the material of Minato's clothes in half of a push, not adding and lessening the strength he put into it. He just forgot about it. But then that hand moved over his body and he frowned, curling his toes and moving his knees up. It felt strangely uneasy when it moved along his body just covered with clothes and when it touched the skin… it burned.

'Mph!...' he whimpered into the mouth, feeling that it was all happening wrong, he was supposed to be the one feeling up the blond and that it was all happening too fast, his body was already burning up like if he started to boil it on the highest possible fire on the oven. If he didn't know any better… if he… He caught the hand when it moved dangerously too low and squeezed it hard to let it stay on the place. He didn't know what would happen if it got carried away like that… too fast. His already too nervous legs were chanting about it too vividly, feeling at unease of the material of his own pants. He forgot how tight the pants could feel when they were actually… filled up.

He had never thought he would be caught in emotion so much it would lead him so far on the first touches already. And he had thought his body had forgotten what was a sexual desire. He whimpered into the mouth again. Only because nothing more manly could get out from such a lip-lock. With a frown, he grabbed onto the clothes of the blond and with all strength he had, he pushed the blond on his back, unlocking the lips and looking into the blue eyes. He wanted to say something harsh and warning, like 'shut up' or 'I'll shoot you' or something like that. But nothing smart was coming to his clouded up head. He licked his lips.

'Enough.' he barked in the end. But even when he tried, in his very own ears it all sounded like a whine for actually something different. He was not. Not like that.

'Mmfow.' Minato said against the lips when the man clutched at his hand. As usual Daichi completely oblivious that he should moderate that terrifying strength he had if he didn't want to break his hand- the right one would be out of commission until it healed or he convinced some medic to fix it up a bit more. Well, okay, more kissing then. He liked it, Daichi was a lot more responsive than he had expected, which in turn made him want to do a lot more to see what else he could do to have him make those exiting little sounds that had to be helpless because he couldn't imagine him wanting to do them on purpose. Not something so submissive and sexy.

Apparently he was right, because almost immediately after he was roughly pushed away, with the panting and flushing Kazekage glaring at him with dark eyes that gleamed rather brightly for the surrounding darkness.

'Enough.' he licked his lips like if he'd had something tasty. One of those sweets he liked so much, perhaps. The tone made him shiver.

'…you look nice like that.' he said in a soft, warm and completely sexualized tone of voice, completely unlike his usual one, his eyes so dark that they looked black with blue highlights rather than just blue.

Daichi glared, breathing and unresponsive. Yes, he felt that the blood had rushed to his head already and probably made him look a little different, but… He scanned over the face of the blond, slowly letting go of the hand he felt he was crushing too hard. Minato still looked beautiful. Gorgeous. But… different.

He felt his blood freeze in realization. It were not eyes of a loving little boy he had imagined the man to be. The sweet blond cat, before having the nice purring voice and soft, touchy hair also grew a pair of nice, sharp claws. That was a challenge he was not expecting to get.

'You look pretty tasty too.' he said in a favorable, low tone, matching what he heard, but at the same time not managing as the fear started running around his head. That was a strategy that needed a lot more thinking here. He moved his hand to touch the pinkish, sweetened lips with both pointing and index finger, brushing against them as he leaned down in a fragile, very soft kiss. Hopefully, not pushing much against the desire as his own had lowered down quite much and he didn't know where the lack of control would lead him if he was to be pushed against it again. Probably somewhere where would be no way back and what he wouldn't want to even check right now. 'But that was a fair share for today. Let's leave it at this.'

Minato laughed again and responded to the kisses just as softly, not pushing against it. Daichi had just had an odd expression cross his face, but he was in too good a humor to want to overanalyze it.

'Don't worry… I just came by to make sure you were still alive.' leaning and nuzzling the man's neck for a moment. '….and maybe some necking and a grope.' he illustrated the point with a happy and sort of perverted gesture with his good hand.

Daichi observed it in silence and then he rolled his eyes up to the heavens. Now he knew from where that came from. Minato lived too close to that white-haired old man to stay sweet and innocent too long. That was not such a dangerous thing as he thought at first. He closed his eyes and relaxed. The blonde strands felt wonderfully soft against his skin.

'I'll just remind you that my neck is around my head and not my pants, Hokage-sama.' he muttered and started stroking the blond hair with his hands. Then he leaned down with closed eyes and nuzzled back against them. The smell was also intoxicating. It seemed like if the blond was all made of things just to push at his senses and make him want to devour him. Ironic, wasn't it?... But oh, so lovely. He kissed the blond strands. Gods, he loved it so much it ached…

…sadly, yes, down there too. It was hard to will away the erection after such a feeling up after such nice 'necking'. But it was now more a pain of a simple strain than of desire. He moved his legs to hide it away. And snickered.

'But look out, next time you might be not so lucky.' he added. Now, when the first realization was gone, he felt the challenge forming up. Oh, it would be nice to watch such a sexy smirk pinned and writhing. Minato surely had hid in himself so much he hadn't seen yet. It was nice to dig it out from the hidden caverns. He illustrated his statement with moving one of his hands down and once again hooking his fingers against the brim of the vest and scrapping the neck lightly with them. Just so little to make it itch, nothing more. '...you're just my little sweet kouhai after all.'

Yes. Exactly.

'I sure am, sempai…' If Daichi wanted to tell himself that, who was he to tell him otherwise? Minato had always been known for shamelessly exploiting any weaknesses and misconceptions others had of him, and he wasn't about to change at this point of his life. If other people want to think of him as weak and stupid just because he was a blue-eyed blond, then they were free to go at it. So he leaned into the touch rather contentedly, and the truth was that if he hadn't been this drained he would have been tempted to have more than just a grope. '…either way, I better be going.' he said, pulling away from the tempting warmth to straighten up and rub at the back of his head.

'I need to get back home and see how baby is doing.' Yet, all he did was stare fixedly at the older man without any particular expression for several seconds. '...'

Daichi let go reluctantly, not really wanting to let go of the blond. It felt good to hold a warm body against himself again when he didn't do that for long and now, when the time was gone, it suddenly became too short for his own tastes even if he was one to say it was already too much. Was he turning bipolar?... Nah.

He lied down on the cushion, looking at the blond with lazy stare, already missing him when he was not gone and inhaling the scent on the sheets. A very good warmed up bed. And he almost felt like reaching out hands to grab the man inside again. But he knew he couldn't rival with 'baby'. Nothing could rival with 'baby'. Some part of Kushina was still laughing at his face. He frowned. And then frowned more when he noticed the strange staring from the man's face, looking at him wordlessly. He rose up from his cushion.

'What?' he asked with unsure smile. He wasn't sure how to interpret this.

The blond seemed to snap out of whatever tangent his mind had escaped about and smiled innocently at the older man in time it made Daichi sit up on the bed in unease. He was ready to get up and follow the blonde if he wouldn't answer. He didn't want to be left hanging at speculations more than he was.

'What is it?' he asked with half insecure and half smiling lips.

The Hokage cocked his head a little to the side, almost like a curious animal. Then grinned. And suddenly he didn't look quite so sweet or innocent or anything remotely in that spectrum of emotions. In fact, it looked kind of scary, and maybe the redhead would have realized it if it hadn't been because Minato chose that moment to drop his hand on the Kazekage's lap, actually groping the man between the legs, sadly over the protection of the pile of blankets he was hiding under.

So he pushed a little against it, then jumped out of range before Daichi decided to kill him.

'Now I'm going home.' he said cheerfully, waving at the older man over his shoulder. 'Remember to dispel the genjutsu when I'm gone. See you tomorrow, Daichi-kun.'

A rather painful hand seal later, he was gone. Daichi stared at the door in silence. The wind blew behind the window in a wheezing, audible tone. Only a few seconds later, he had finally let the breath that hitched up in his lungs at the feeling. Then he slowly sagged down, looking at his pants. That was the most unexpected and the quietest orgasm he had ever had. Thankfully to that, he hadn't registered anything that was said to him later.

'That… bastard.' he said finally. Not knowing if he used the right word. Then he slowly got up from bed and on weak legs walked up to the bathroom. If his people knew how much water he wasted here, they would probably make a rebellion and hang his dead body outside the mansion on a few wooden rods…

…wait, that wasn't a good comparison. He looked at the mirror. The man on the other side looked more like if he was frightened than ready to battle against what blond was pulling on him.

'Life is surely full of surprises.' he said to the man in the mirror. Daichi number two had shrugged 'And they taste of wildness.' Now was the question who was more wild on this territory. With a sigh, he turned the shower on. Goodbye, ascetic. It was good, until it lasted. And now… He closed his eyes. The young slick body of Minato with a big scar in front, changing in the hot springs… it looked tasty. And absolutely ravishable. He looked down at himself as he bit on his lower lip. At that time, nobody could disturb him in his privacy. Not now. Not here. So he closed his eyes and this time, let himself drift away into the nice bliss again. Controlled this time.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato reappeared almost out of his own house, the cold air a shock against his own skin, rather heated not only because of the activities that had just transpired as much as the stifling and overheated atmosphere of the mansion the Sunanians were using. Not that he minded. Either hot or cold, he just felt… happy right now. And rather silly. He hadn't thought about sex much in a rather long while, mostly because he usually found things beautiful at an artistic level and he needed contact and closeness for them to trigger sexual instincts on him. Daichi had successfully done that, but besides that, it just pleased him so much to know he could have that effect on the other man so easily.

It made him feel rather silly. Like dropping down and rolling in the snow, actually, but now that he didn't have beautifully skinned, dark eyed redhead Kazekage in front of him to distract him, he started thinking about Naruto a lot more, and decided that it was high time to go see where he was. Baby probably was worried about him.

He was rather surprised to find not only was Naruto waiting up for him, but also Kakashi and even his sensei. The man seemed to be rather concentrated on finishing that bottle he'd gotten from Daichi, and seemed to think that 'That bastard better get me another bottle of this.' was an appropriate welcome for his Hokage. He didn't dignify the man with an answer, but Naruto, who was fighting sleep with just as much success as his young ANBU captain seemed to be suddenly woke up and ran to him, throwing himself to his chest in a desperate hug.

'Babyyy~' he cooed rather happily, squeezing the little blonde back just as enthusiastically. 'What are you doing up?' The question was said to the little blonde, but his eyes went to the silver-haired teen. Not aggressively, really, just curiously. Naruto's bedtime had passed around the time he'd been dragged into the meeting room.

'Ah, sensei, good mornin'…' said Kakashi not very consciously as he got up from the sofa to greet the blond 'Naruto said he wanted to wait for you to make sure you came back safe so I couldn't get him to sleep… wasn't that what you said, Naruto?...' And then, he yawned widely. Though through mask it was barely noticeable.

'Really?' Naruto looked up at him with those huge, cerulean-blue eye that were so much like Kushina it was just weird to see them in a face so much like his own and clung tighter to his neck. 'I thought you were hurt.' he said simply. And sure, that was the simple version. There was no way he could coherently explain all the things he felt or the blind panic he'd felt when Kakashi decided that whatever was wrong had to be more important that taking care of him.

'Aw.' he let Naruto cuddle close and started stroking his back soothingly, not surprised when the blonde immediately sagged against him. With as tense as he had been the past days with the raccoon in such an aggressive state plus the day he had had, it was a wonder he wasn't out yet. If the plaint way he stuck to him was any clue, it would take less time than going to his room for him to be completely out of it. 'You should have gone to bed yourself, Kakashi-kun.' He wasn't mad at the teen anymore, he had already dipped him in a thick layer of guilt before his ninja had a chance to arrive to the battle zone and now was much more willing to be understandable. If he'd put Nara on charge of communications and he told Kakashi to move it there, there was little else he could do.

'Really?' said Kakashi like if he heard that he was already eighteen and could go watch porn but the clock was still showing half past 11 p.m. to birthday 'I can?'

'Of course, Kakashi. Just go to bed. And if by chance you decide to sleep in late, feel free to do so, I could use an excuse not to go to the office tomorrow at the break of dawn.' he patted the sharingan user's head affectionately, then put his hand on his hip and gave the toad sage an unamused look. 'Sensei… You should go to bed too.'

'I'm not drunk enough yet.' his teacher complained, serving himself another healthy dose of the creamy contents of the bottle. The man was half slumped against the table and seemed to be very concentrated on making out what the intricate designs on the bottle were supposed to be.

'Drunk enough for what?'

'Convince myself that at any point this seemed like a good idea.' The blond rolled his eyes.

'Will you ever be?' he asked ironically, but made no move to stop him from the duty. If his sensei wanted to get drunk off his ass, he was entitled to do it. He'd put him in a rather uncomfortable position and all in all, he'd received a lot more help than he would have expected from the man.

'Okay, it's late. Let's go sleep now. Good night, sensei.'

'G'night, Ero-sennin.' Naruto called out as he cuddled even closer, seeming to be perfectly okay with being carried on his father's arms all the way to his room.

'Jiraiya-sama, you brat!'

Chuckling to himself, Minato walked left the room, pushing Kakashi into the right direction as he seemed to be trying very hard to walk into a wall. By the time he finished his shower and went to his bed, he wasn't really surprised to find a little bland of blond already deeply asleep and curled right in the center of it. Even though he remembered tucking him in his own room not fifteen minutes ago. With a small smile, Minato simply changed into something more appropriate for bed and turned off the lights.

#+#+#+#+#+#

A cup of coffee. A big luxury mug of pitch black bitter coffee just enough to put his blood system into shock and make it work twice as quick – not quick enough as the soldier's pill, but not slow as an average human. That has his first wish. Then a portion of greasy, dry peanuts without adds as he hated salt, butter and all those spices when they were mixed wrong on good nuts. And they could smell of earth. It would be good if they would be out of transport. Yeah. A big bowl of earth-smelling peanuts… second wish…

And of course, some spiced up, dry meat, that tasted more of salt and Tabasco than meat itself. A big plate of it. Yeah. And a piece of bread, that small, flat Suna bread that crunched between his teeth with grains of sand as poor bread makers didn't have enough money to buy enough flour, so they mixed sand with it. Nobody should have noticed, they were masters in adding such things, but he did. And he loved it. The bread from the grounds, the bread he always ate, the bread of his homeland country… no other food could taste better than the patriotic taste of bread that reminded you the desert with every bite.

Oh, and baklava. Did he mention he wouldn't mind baklava? Yashamaru bought tons of that yesterday and kids probably would be going around licking it for the whole damn day, so a reminder why he hated sweets would be good. Just a spoon of it. Enough to make him go green at the sight of sweets for another month. Because he felt like if he grew fond of sweets suddenly. For no reason… Fourth wish. Yes, those were good, simple wishes he would loved if they came true this morning. He smiled through his still closed eyes. He could feel the coffee being made already…

But this morning, instead of a cup of coffee and the traditional breakfast he ate only on Sundays, what greeted Sabaku no Daichi, was something completely different.

'Kazekage-sama!' screamed someone right into his ear, making him jump shocked (just like after coffee) and land on the floor to kiss the floor (there was his dusty bread) 'IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT KAZEKAGE-SAMA OH MY GODS WHAT'S HAPPENED WHY EVERYTHING LOOKS ALL RIGHT-'

'Shut up!' screamed someone else and the dull smack could be heard. Daichi coughed up, turning his half-blinded eyes at the morning light (spicy) and the people inside his room. The emergency group under Baki's command.

'What…' he asked, getting up from the covers he tangled himself impossibly tight and shivered. The air in the room was nice but the opened door were letting some new, colder air and if he saw right, the snowstorm was happening so it wasn't very enjoyable thing to brush against '…what are you doing? Something's happened?'

'No, it's just that there was genjutsu on the cameras…' said Baki, brushing his neck from the uneasiness '…and we some sort of panicked that we missed something important. But it's good you're all right, Kazekage-sama.'

Daichi's face fell. Genjutsu? Why would someone make a genjutsu in his room to blind the cameras- Oh. His face started tingling impossibly hot, rushing up with the memories as various places on his body started itching after what his memory showed. Possible. Very possible there was genjutsu. And it was good there was. Of course. But they didn't have to know about it. Instantly, he covered the blush with angered up face.

'…you imbeciles!...' he hissed, crunching up his hands in tight fists 'Don't you know that even I need some kind of privacy from time to time? How long do you think I could just lay here observed by everyone!'

'But… Kazekage-sama…' piped in one of the ANBU women 'We thought you were in danger…'

'In danger? Who? Who do you see in danger here?' he shouted louder, making the woman step back. It was obvious that the only danger here was the Kazekage himself 'Don't you have anything else to do, smartasses? Bring me breakfast, godsdamn you!'

'Yes, Kazekage-sama!...' muttered some of the ninjas. The rest just fled, leaving Daichi alone.

'He is such a slavedriver, I swear…' muttered one of the ANBUs in a whisper, making Baki sigh. He could not really complain as he knew why it was possibly done for but he couldn't argue either. If he did, he'd have to spill everything he knew. And snickering ANBU behind Kazekage's back was the worst what could happen to all of them. For Daichi, because he'd feel circled by the people whom he couldn't trust and of course, for him, because he'd have to do the mass extermination. As for them… as much as normal it was, nobody wanted to die, right?...

With another readmitting sigh, he moved toward kitchen, noticing the day in calendar. Kazekage probably was going nuts without his homemade food as he started talking about it to his guards. He doubted anything passable could be found in completely different fridge of Hokage's mansion but if by luck he could – it was always worth a try…

#+#+#+#+#+#

Sadly, he didn't. Kazekage, after munching on the white bread with white cheese, vegetables he never saw and drinking the very weakened tea had looked like if everything was made of lemons and became even more hard to bear. He wasn't shouting or being particularly rude to his people, but he seemed to not be able to say what kind of differences East and West had. He walked around the most important places, intruding people who didn't dare to tell him to go away and stood like a pole staring at something in silence. Sometimes it was window, sometimes it was painting at the wall and sometimes it was even the floor with nothing very interesting and kept on making faces at it.

It almost looked like if he was going mad, because, apart from his usual sour tones, there were also faces that seemed to belong to the giddy teenager, little kid and even sultry prostitute. The last ones were the most scary and soon made Baki move the Kazekage to his own room to pack his own things in his own tempo, not really hoping he would do anything beside sitting on the bed and playing with handkerchief he was supposed to fold. It seemed that he had crossed some new point of his own emotionality at the point where no one was looking and (after thirty years!) decided to lose the cold blood and go along it.

That was a scene no one who believed in hard as steel will of Kazekage would want to see without getting a shock. That's why it was the safest to just separate him. With a sigh, Baki left to take place of Kazekage and control the works of people who didn't really rest up from yesterday, only not really. With the snowstorm outside he doubted they would move out even by evening.

But Daichi didn't doubt that. More, he didn't even thought about it. His ideas all kept on getting back to what he lived through the previous night. It was almost like if he had opened the closed bottle of all ideas he didn't dare to think about that was constantly filled up day after day. And one it was opened, it drowned him in everything he met there. Until now he didn't really thought about the sexual spectrum of the relationship with Minato. Sure, he had a few feverish visions he brought onto himself when he was starting to go out of his mind and liked what the blonde presented when he had changed in the hot springs' changing room, but…

…now, when the possibilities had opened…

…he just couldn't push them back to the back of his mind. All he saw was the blonde and all possible things he could teach him and things he had always wanted to show him and never could and now… it was almost like if he had suddenly changed into the old aged pervert. Even with Karura he had much clearer mind when he had got drunk on the first impression what sex was and what it was supposed to bring. Now he just caught himself on wanting to go and search for that feather he was not sure they even had in Konoha – he wasn't even sure if he remembered the way he was supposed to use it after so much time…

And when he kept on walking around the room and thinking about such things absent mindedly as he packed himself in much slower pace than he normally would (it was already nearing the dinner time when he had only packed his second bag!) when his ears caught on the strange sound from another side of the wall. It almost sounded like if someone had let the sick cat in and now the thing couldn't shut up, yowling like mad. But who could've let the puss inside the mansion?...

Probably it was just a coincidence of the workers that repaired the mansion. He ignored it for at least five minutes, folding the clothes in much quicker speed as he was distracted, but in the end he decided to get out of the room and search for the thing. As little as he cared for animals he was sure nobody should let the thing stay in that shape for long. It would simply be inhuman (and disturb life flowing in his head- this house he meant). But when he crept around the corner to locate the meowing kitten, instead of finding the shrieking puss, he had almost tripped on the youngest redhead of the house. Who was source of the noise by the way.

And that wasn't pretty, because what he first took for mewling was actually a pair of muffled sobs tied to the pink face curled to the old teddy bear. For a moment they eyes each other in silence. Then Gaara had hid his face deeper into the toy and continued crying. Usually he would prepare for the sand coming into life, but as nothing that looked like sand jumped around the child anymore… he reluctantly made a step closer, then one more, completely close, still aware of his surroundings. Nobody was sitting in the devastated room. Everyone were running other rooms of the mansion by themselves. But how come nobody told him about it? Where was Chiyo?...

'What are you doing here, Gaara?' he asked carefully, crouching down to look at the eye-level of the child. The redhead hiccupped. 'Where's Chiyo-sama?'

'I dunno…' said Gaara, licking his lips out of snot and pushing his face against the plush like if it was a towel 'She just left me in the hall and I didn't know what to do so I came here…'

Daichi's eyebrows rose at the words.

'Why? You don't have to sit here now.' he said, thought it was not a complete truth. Gaara was not located anywhere yet and he hadn't got time to take care of that yet as he was busy with everything else. He didn't think it would be such a problem at the fact they were going to move away soon so it slipped his mind. The redhead shrugged.

'To not be danger to everyone else.' he recited the words that he always repeated to him. Daichi bit on his lip in a silent hiss. 'But I'm sleepy… and nobody cares… I want to play with Naruto… and it's so silent… mother won't stop shouting…'

The small lips had wrinkled in the unhappy expression again as the sob shook the lithe body and Gaara once again curled close to the plush. Daichi observed him in silence. That… was a big misunderstanding in the whole situation. Shouldn't it be obvious to the kid that there was no danger anymore?... He locked the monster and there shouldn't be any sort of communication between it and Gaara, but… what actually could he know what was happening in the child's head?...

He moved his hand in slow, careful motion only to brush it against the fluffy hair of the kid. Gaara's shoulder has stiffened as he stopped his sob in the middle. Nothing else had happened. His eyebrows furrowed in painful expression, not making him stop from continuing the light stroking. His son. His poor little son he had finally got out from the awful monster's claws where he put him in the very beginning… he deserved much more than that. Without hesitance he grabbed the child and scooped it on his arm like a small cat. At this age and posture, the redhead weighted almost nothing without his sand. Or maybe he was just too strong for some things.

'Come on.' he muttered, giving him the tight hug. The kid froze completely, unmoving, but he could feel the rapid speed of the heartbeats in the small chest - even through clothes 'You will help me pack. A pair of hands would be surely helpful now.'

He moved out of the room not lessening the hold for a moment. It was only in the middle of hallways when the pair of small hands had finally winded around his neck and snuggled closer. A moment later Chiyo showed, obviously searching for something.

'Too late.' he muttered before she could even speak up 'Founders keepers.' And after that he closed the door of his messy room. He wouldn't change the look on the woman's face even for a public kiss with Minato now. Okay, maybe that was a wrong choice of words. He would very likely want to see her face when this would happen. But maybe a hug. Yes, a hug would be good. It was something he could live without in public anyway. With one last squeeze he finally let go of the child who didn't seem to mind that he held it up for so unmanly long. No wonder. But there was time for this later too. He clapped his hands to get them warmer from the colder air outside.

'Okay, you get that hill and I get another.' he said pointing at the clothes that didn't need to be folded just as neatly as other since they were made of materials that took well even great sparrings of Kazekage 'Just fold them in squares, that should do the trick.'

The redhead nodded with serious face, blushing from excitement. It was first time Daichi had entrusted with him with something that important and he was almost trembling to show that this trust he gained was laid proficiently. The man smiled at that. Kids. But at least with them around, any sexual ideas were more restrained than around the blocks of ice in pants. The bottle was corked again. For later. And they worked.

And what a productive time it was. With two pairs of hands and the saffron haired man not spacing out, the bags started filling up in quite nice speed. Of course, small arms of Gaara couldn't have lifted as much as he did in one go, but he tried. And it was not fault of the weight, more than sizes – the redhead was already used to carry much heavier objects around. And besides, he had also been a very interesting object to look at. So Daichi didn't hurry much. Just folded the sleeves, pants, ties and claps and observed…

It was really wonderful how such a small child could get such a serious expression already. It was not uncommon in Suna as everyone grew up young, but the kid could reflect the look of an old man in the green eyes. Or how he bit his lower lip when he was going through some very difficult fold (it seemed familiar but he couldn't remember when he saw it last time. Maybe it had something to do with Baki or something…). Or how funny his voice sounded when he was not scared or sad.

Especially when he was hesitant to ask.

'…it's… very silent, isn't it?...' he asked, blushing a bit, trying to become conversational. Sadly, neither of them had much of the skill as it as first meeting without the third participant getting in '…mother is singing.'

'Oh really.' he muttered, tying two pairs of expensive shoes together 'What exactly is it singing?...'

'A strange song.'

The silence fell. Daichi got out another pair of expensive shoes. No, not them. Those would be good to wear for special occasions, but they were too obvious. He pretended he didn't glance at the redhead who pretended he wasn't looking back and coughed up a bit.

'What kind of song exactly?' he didn't suspect that Shukaku could sing. Gaara looked in front of himself with a frown that only added to seriousness of his small face.

'I've got the big bag of craps here…' he intoned with childish voice 'I'm gonna put them in my mouth, oh yeah-'

'-okay, that's enough.' said Daichi, closing the suitcase with a little too loud sound 'Don't sing anymore. And don't even listen to it. How about something else, hm?'

'She doesn't want to sing anything else.' said Gaara, turning to the man with a painful scrunch of the nose. It seemed it was disturbing him quite as little as he was not used to such new behavior of the monster 'Mommy never acted that way…'

'Don't mind it.' he said, turning around in search for a radio something just as playable 'Just deafen it…'

But sadly, the room had no TV. Or radio. Just perfect sterile room for his own needs, just as he wanted. Now he started regretting what he wanted. He turned to the child who looked at him with unhappy expression, obviously expecting a help he never failed to deliver. He wiped his cheek, lost in thought. What could he do in such situation?...

'I know.' he snapped, leaving the shoes on the floor 'Outing it. You can speak quite loud when you want to, I know that.' he said. But much to his dismay, the redhead only saddened more.

'I don't know what.' he said. Daichi frowned. Supposedly, Gaara didn't have much occasions to learn the songs from anywhere. Remembering how he had always locked him everywhere out of the range of hear, it seemed to be almost impossible… But now he could repair the mistake, right? He smiled.

'How about this:' he said, clearing his throat. He was not singing from some time but as far as he heard he had quite a nice voice. He didn't know how much that was truth and how much were just nice lean lies of people who feared to tell him the truth, but that shouldn't have mattered when it came to this song 'I've been through the desert on the horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain…'

The redhead blinked. And then repeated with childish voice of his, catching the phrases and tact quickly. Daichi rose his eyebrows. Could be that Gaara had inherited not only looks but abilities to sing of his own mother?

'In the desert you can remember your name, 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain…' he sang out forward, also getting the words repeated in quick catches. Five minutes later they were both folding clothes in the rhythm of the song as they sang in unison. And who knew, it was actually much better than having the radio turned on – at least that what Daichi felt. But the redhead didn't complain about Shukaku anymore, so he assumed he also enjoyed the song. He was at the third 'The ocean is a desert with its life underground' when someone had knocked to the door, making him jump in his shoes. He didn't like being caught on such simplicities as singing with people he was supposed to rule. It was not good to his image.

He swallowed audibly, thinking of excuse. But Baki only shook his head.

'Kazekage-sama' he said, pointing at the clock 'Council.'

Daichi had blinked. It was ten to five. Oh gods, he forgot. With a quick movements, he had lunged toward the clothes he prepared for that occasion, wearing them with speed that matched his strength (though it was far from Minato's kind of speed) and looked at Baki with frustration.

'Why didn't you come earlier?' he hissed. Baki just shrugged. 'Why are you not responding?'

At that, the man showed to his right. Daichi followed it, looking at Gaara. And the redhead was sleeping. For a moment, he froze in the middle of movement. Sleeping?... But then, it was only sleeping. There were no jerky movements, empty gazes or opened eyes. Even the breath, always slowed down, seemed to be evened out in normal, quiet sighs. Sleeping. Just sleeping.

With one movement of the hand he had shoed the jounin away and he crept closer to the child to look at it. At some point it seemed that the song had worked like a sleeping powder on already lolling kid and made him fall face down into the blue pants of his on the middle of perfectly good fold. He stroked the red hair, checking if that kind of touch would wake him, but it seemed to be with no avail – if the light snort was any indication. The child was sleeping like a piece of stone.

With one quick movement he moved him from the floor into his bed, where he tucked him up to the neck, along with the stuffed toy. Just in case if he woke up alone and had no one to turn to. But seeing as deep into a slumber he was… maybe he should've made someone watch him for not to fall into coma. Who knew where sleeping after so many insomniac nights could lead this kid. But wasn't this amazing? A sleeping Gaara. Looked as harmless like a snowflake falling from the sky. Completely.

Daichi kept starring at the child in amazement for another few moments, not being able to fill up the astonishment at the sight, and then he had finally clasped the ends of his awfully rich coat along with awfully decorated shoes, only to move outside of the mansion. Late, of course. The council would be very, very distasted by the fact the never-late-Kazekage came late to their oh-so-important meeting. He smirked. He loved making the softies red from anger. They got that nice shade of scarlet on faces then. Almost like if the sun on Suna had gave them a handful of killing rays. And with that smirk, he walked up, completely not hurrying up, to the place of the meeting. Once he had clicked on the doorknob of the pinpointed room, he was already half an hour late. Perfect.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Hokage-sama…'

'Yes, yes, paper. Signing… I'm on it…'

He so wasn't on it. In fact, he was pretty sure than by the time Kakashi had managed to peel him from his bed and send him off to office he had accidentally left his brain lodged between pillow and that ugly sleeping cap that his son was so enamored of and had accidentally been left by blond jr. whenever he happened to get up. Just to scare the living daylights out of him, apparently, because Sarutobi-sensei might have thought that to be a cute gift, but Minato knew very well that black, square-toothed cap with its beady eyes and unnerving stare was actually the thing nightmares were made of.

Either way, he'd been dragged to the office leaving behind Jiraiya who had to be having the most awful hangover of his life if the fact Shima was there was any sort of clue. If his sensei was willing to go through the incessant nagging in his state, he probably was feeling sicker than a dog, but at least the old frog seemed to like Naruto well enough considering she had enlisted him to help her in preparing whatever she was doing to lessen his sensei's illness. After a pause to greet her, inquire about Gamabunta's state and request her to make sure his son didn't get burned on the stove, he fled to the office and arrived more or less two seconds before the council did. Barely enough to get on his desk and look busy before having three already long and unfriendly faces become even longer and unfriendly-er.

Good thing their office was all the way on the other side of the building, because Minato had already had enough from the Fire nation's inquisition in a single day, not to mention the fact that because the previous day hadn't gone back to office after the afternoon, there were a lot more things to go through and sign than usual. So here he was. Without breakfast, no sex and a pile of paperwork to go through with nothing but his secretaries uplifting low-cut kunoichi top to get him through the day. Maybe he really had spent too much time as his sensei's student –and really, he had nothing against less, well… gifted females - but there were few things that could compare to Setsuna Akimichi's front.

He had a chance to give it another appreciative look on his way to the small kitchen to make himself some coffee. Usually secretaries were for that, but the blonde usually proffered to do it himself because it gave him a chance to escape the office for a few moments and see if there was something going on he should be aware of. Too bad nothing was happening to get him out of the office today- either he picked up a rhythm or he'd be there until the next day.

'Can I get you anything, Setsuna-san?' he asked on his way back, not really thinking about the office. 'The overview in the missions reports regarding those C and B-ranked missions would be nice.' she answered without even looking up from the scrolls she was going through. 'Akame-san has been waiting for those since yesterday.'

And he hadn't even finished through the A ranked ones yet… The worst part being he didn't even want to do it, either.

'Are you sure we aren't having a war, emergency or some unexpected disaster that might require my presence?' The woman's generous lips titled up in a smirk.

'The only impending disaster I can think of is waiting for you in your desk, Minato-sama. You better go tend to it now, you village is in dire need of your help.' Not only was she a slave driver and a nice rack, but also a sense of humor. No wonder she was his head secretary.

'Any news on Kazekage-sama?'

Rising amber-colored eyes to meet his, the woman stared for a moment then looked down at some papers in front of her, going through them efficiently until she found what she wanted.

'He had a meeting scheduled for fifteen minutes ago. I daresay he is late.' Minato couldn't suppress the smirk.

'Really?' The only way this could get better was if the redhead called them peasants. He really loved it when the other man used to do that, it was just incredibly funny simply because of the way the man said it, which pretty much reduced the word to a synonym of 'vermin'. Oddly enough, when he said 'enough' it was more like an antonym…

'Hokage-sama.'

'Hmmm…?'

'Please stop thinking whatever you are about the council and go back to work. If this isn't done by the end of my shift, I will have to ask you to arrange them on your own.' He didn't know what got him out of that mind track faster, imagining the council in the same situation he was imagining Daichi in, or the idea of the billions of scrolls he had no idea what to do with or whom he was supposed to deliver them to. He turned to the older woman with a hopeful grin.

'…can I at least have a hug?'

'You think you deserve it, sir?' He waved his hand dismissively.

'We'll place it under 'motivational purposes' list.'

Rising her eyebrows high, the brunette gave the younger man an amused smile.

'I don't think my husband would approve, Hokage-sama, I strongly suggest you to try luck with your child when he decided to come over.' Minato pouted at her, then reached down and grabbed a handful of sweets from the bowl containing them and went back to his office. That'll teach her.

#+#+#+#+#+#

The council's room was big. And by big, it meant at least half of his room in Suna. Which, by Konoha's standards, was quite some place. And if he wasn't living in such big spaces himself, he would probably feel intimidated by the, nice and soft, of course, but still alone chair in the centre of the room. But, regardless that, he was not going to leave the old farts disappointed.

'Oh, Kazekage-sama, welcome.' said the trio of old men (and woman) standing up at his sight, he nodded politely, but didn't wait for the words that would let him come in. Instead, he bargained like a movie star, kicking the doors wide like if he came from a big hurry. 'We were waiting for you, please, sit-'

But he sat already. The trio blinked, then decided to sit themselves. He breathed, looking at the calmly in relaxed pose of the big rajah, the one the first Kazekage liked to take, but only in his own house. He himself just didn't practice it as he didn't find anything very mighty in the 'kazekage's' position, but… the show had to go on. He whisked his richly decorated sleeve, just enough for a big golden ring with ruby great as square of sugar shine in the electric light of the room.

'What took you so long?' asked the man in glasses with a little tone of impatience. He looked to the side and yawned, covering his mouth with palm where another two golden rings - one with desert glass and the gold stone, and the other with blue gold stone.

'Oh, I just had some more important…' he yawned again '...matters to do…'

And with the heavy lean on the chair he actually indicated quite clearly that it was nothing else but actually a sweet nap that was included in the last activities. But his face kept a completely serious and polite mask. '…excuse my lateness. I'm sorry.'

No, he was not.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Hokage-sama?' Minato looked up from the scrolls he was working in. he'd made it all the way to almost C missions, which only left the whole bulk of D mission that he sincerely considered secretaries should do but Sarutob-sensei felt it was a good message to send to kids that hated the missions as much as the Hokage hated going through them- what they did was good and brought money to the village. And considering he had quite a few more decades of experience eon the job, Minato usually listened to the old man, but that didn't change the fact the pile of D rank mission was a very large and high pile of time-waste.

'Yes?'

'I thought you might want to know that Kazekage-sama finally made it to the meeting.' he looked up from the report he was going on to look at her in surprise- then at the clock. A whole. Hour. Later. Oh, this would be epic. Stuff of legends. He turned his blue eyes back to the secretary, smiling at her.

'Hey, Setsuna-san.'

'Yes?'

'Want to bet I manage to finish this before they're done?' The woman put her hands on her hips, giving him an unamused stare.

'All of that?' he gave the pile of reports a searching group, then nodded. 'Appropriately done?'

'Have I ever failed you, Setsuna-san?'

'In a legible letter?' he grinned.

'Now there's where I draw the line, Setsuna-san, I'm afraid I'm only human…'

The brunette rolled her eyes.

'You are on it, Hokage-sama. Maybe if you do it right I'll be having some sweets when you decide to sneak out of office.'

'Yosh. I'll do it youthfully, vigorously, burning with flames-'

'I'll content myself with you stopping to quote Maito-kun and finishing it on time, sir.' With a final grin he went back to work. Let's see who was faster.

Daichi might think his council was weak when compared to his own, but he apparently didn't know that in Soviet Konoha, three old men (and one old woman) had the uncanny ability to make simple matters stretch indefinitely for the sheer sake of torture. Let's see how much diplomatic immunity Daichi could pull out before they were through with him.

#+#+#+#+#+#

But, despite the dark fact of the council trying to brainwash him to answer correctly on questions and drown Suna in pacts of debts that would never end – Daichi was having a great fun. He had managed to interrupt the long and important speech three times with completely inadequate sentences that made the men lose their track of thoughts, then he had covered the old granddads (and one grandmom) with as long as boring story of times when the Third Kazekage held an idea to build Sand Springs in the centre of the Easter Deserts and how that plan was a thing that made no sense and still makes no sense but he, as a total admirer of his jobs wouldn't mind if the complete senseless jobs would be continued in the future in the name of the greatness of the Kazekage the Third…

When they tried to interrupt him he walked out in the great dishonor and came back only after he was chased after and then he pretended to fall asleep and started once again another long boring story about his past, and when he was interrupted again – he started finally talking about things he was asked about.

'So, why had that sparring happened?...' asked Homura, completely tired already even if after an hour and half they still got close to nowhere from the beginning.

'Oh, we just talked about whose son is more great warrior.' said Daichi, watching his nails with great interest 'Mine has the nice green eyes, just as my beautiful mother.'

'Yes, I'm sure your mother was a great woman…' started Homura.

'I hated my mother!' he shouted, once again like if he was mortally disgraced and turned to the side with a frown. It was a lie, but he was sure that mother would forgive him as she was probably sitting nearby and having fun herself 'Oh, what a bunch of crazy old people…'

'And getting back to the topic-' pressured Homura, pretending to not see what the Kazekage was doing. Seriously, he just wanted to go home now 'I don't know if we shouldn't consider the let out of the jinchuuriki in its hostility outside as a sign of war-'

'I'm cold!' he shouted out suddenly 'Will I get some hot tea?'

The Third Hokage had frowned, smiling at him gently, though it was visible the situation was starting to get uneasy for him too.

'Please, let's not mind such a minor needs and move on with the topic-'

'Minor needs? Minor needs!...' he hissed and then stood up and moved out of the room with head pointed up proudly. The slam of the door could be heard on the whole floor. And it was silent, where the old people considered if it was okay to chase after him again or maybe just leave him the hell alone, but just then he came back with the big pack of snow in his heavily decorated coat and threw it at the desk of the three of them, shouting about lack of logical use of the water in the country and how awful it was to waste water and say they had no money, because if they saved snow they would surely save money because water was money and (when the old Homura tried to say that water in Konoha cost less than a lollipop) in Suna people would kill for that big amount of money and that they were making people starve and money was laying on the streets and other illogical and very not linked things about his loose ideas mixed together. When he finally managed to make the old man get up from the chair, he wiped his hands of the snow on his coat and sat down on the chair.

'So, what was this that you wanted to talk about with me?' he said calmly with a smile that could be considered sweet after all scenes he made there 'I'm here for so long and you didn't even start on the topic. Could you hurry? I'm late already, and you know that I don't like to arrive late to the meetings.'

It took only another hour of grunts and completely uninterested answers from him that could be easily turned from 'maybe even if then yes but no' to 'if I knew then maybe my lack of knowledge would be more understandable to me, but even then I wouldn't tell you.' When he saw that the trio, including the Sandaime Hokage was ready to throw kunais at him, he got up, cutting the woman in the middle of very heatened speech and yawned again, stretching like if he had a very good nap. Then he looked at them like if he saw them for the first time in his life.

'By dear gods, dear highness and employees!' he shouted in a tone that could be considered outrageous at the behavior and completely offended 'The way you act is completely unheard of, calm down!'

And when they had finally stopped shouting and pointing fingers at him with hair that were half destroyed from polite buns and tucked strands he smiled at them with a pity that showed that he could do nothing about the fact that people in front of him were completely crazy.

'Since I came here to investigate on the matter of what's happened in the field and you seem to be totally not interested in what I have to say on those facts, I guess I'll just have to leave.' he said with a sarcastic sigh, flapping his hands in hopeless manner, making sure all his jewels glinted in the lights. Then he smiled at them with a pity. '…peasants.'

And with that, making dramatic turn on his heel, he left as he came in – with a bang.


	30. Chapter Thirty: Too cold to snow

It was already dark outside, but he didn't mind the scenery. He just had one of the most relaxing fun of his Kazekage job of his life. Oh, he loved those rare moments. Konoha's council really was just a bunch of softies. And he was so relaxed about it, that for the second time this day, he had almost tripped on something small, warm and squishy. Almost. When he had regained the straight posture, he looked down, actually expecting to see a dog there. But once again, he was wrong.

'Naruto.' he said, frowning. What was the kid doing here at this hour?... 'Shouldn't you be sleeping at home?'

The little blond who had quickly scrambled from under his legs looked at the man as if he were crazy.

'It's only seven in the afternoon!' what did he think he was, a baby? He could stay up all the way till ten in the night if daddy was out. 'And I'm not grounded or anything!'

He seemed to be about to add something more but then his eyes went to the closed doors and a moment later he was scrambling behind the robed of the redhead. Not because he thought that hiding behind the Kazekage was a very well… son-of-Hokage-ish thing to do, or that he now liked the man because he helped him yesterday, because even so he didn't and that Gaara's mom had gone crazy was his fault anyway, but even so-

The door opened and the blond curled down in an even smaller ball, where at least he was shielded from the scathing glares of three evil people and non-glaring Jii-chan. For once the trio weren't directing his eyes to the little blond, but that was either because they hadn't actually seen him or because they felt the Kazekage deserved it a lot more than he did. It was only after some stiff parting words and the group of elders having gone away that the little blond moved from behind the man, now giving him a sort of insecure look, as if he were an animal that he wasn't sure might have rabies and would try to take a bite at him.

'…where's my daddy? I thought he'd be there.'

The only reason he'd even get close to this part of the building would have been to come pick Minato up, but when he'd gone to his office, he'd been gone already. Daichi, who had made an awfully polite but sarcastic grin through all the way of the elders passing, felt a little disturbed that the little kid, who stared at him with such hatred decided to actually use him as a shield. But it seemed he was already starting to become a nanny to all kids on the world. The only thing he lacked was Hyuuga's kids talking to him per 'uncle.' He uncrossed his hands and looked at the blond.

'He is not here?' he asked, only mildly surprised. He would have expected the Hokage to have more working to do as the paperwork was usually a very boring and long thing, but if that was so… 'Then he is probably home already.'

He frowned, looking at the little kid and the surrounding area. It felt almost impossible that the kid had sneaked out without that nanny-boy of his. Did Minato even know that the boy was here? Oh boy. Kids. Without another useless sentence, he hung out a free palm.

'Here, give me your hand.' he muttered, looking at the kid with much or less distress. It was still like if he was about to make a deal with Kushina to be able to touch that thing, that thing that resembled so strongly of her and of how she outsmarted him and left him in despair for fifteen years – but that didn't really matter now, did it? He had finally got what he wanted in the end... 'Hurry or I'll change my mind and let you back home alone through that darkness. Now.'

And besides, Kushina's child or not, it was still only a child. He didn't like kids very much, but when they rid him to guilty he liked them even less. And this one also seemed to dislike old peeps, so… even that thing alone deserved some prize.

'Daddy wouldn't go home without me, he knows I come pick him up every day.' and then he usually took him to Ichiraku's, but considering the climate outside, they'd probably be having it at home, if anything… He stopped to look at the hand as if the man had offered him an adult's book. 'Nnnoo….' Naruto stared at the hand nervously, then added a 'but thank you' as an afterthought. He still didn't want that man touching him more than necessary, daddy's friend or not. That really would have become a very uncomfortable moment if the aforementioned older blond hadn't made act of appearance then, followed by his jounin.

'Naruto, you are here?'

'Daddy!' promptly forgetting the Kazekage existed, the little blond launched himself to his father's arms. Minato ruffled the kid's head, pecked him on the head and then finally turned to give his ex teammate an amused once-over. It seemed Daichi had gone fully fledged for showing the old bastards who was Suna royalty by his own right.

'Interesting meeting, Kazekage-sama.'

'Mediocre if I could say like that.' said Daichi, hiding the free hand back in the cross of both hands. It was particularly cold outside and he didn't wore gloves simply because none of them could get around his rings the way they should. He glanced at the little blond. Maybe that was better 'The elders of yours still are soft like bunch of crackers and they crack me up still the same if you know what I mean.'

And gods, wouldn't it be good to actually flirt with the blond right now, his good mood tempted him to do that more than before. But in front of kid nothing of such could happen. Kids were the easiest to break when it came to facts after all.

'I wanted to get that brat of yours home, but since I see he is not alone then I guess I won't have to.' he muttered, then glanced at the stars up above. Still too little for him for a nice view, but enough to get the meaning of time 'I should be going back then, it's too cold to stay outside for me.'

'They certainly looked like they had a meeting with you.' oh, he'd been looking forward to whatever Daichi would make his dear council go through. Kushina had been bad enough, but she didn't have Daichi's political weight to back her up. 'Would you like to come over for dinner?' he asked, easily adjusting his son on his hip with one arm. 'Naruto mentioned he had a dinner program with Gaara-sama before and-'

'Gaara hates me.' said a soft, suddenly depressed voice.

'What?'

Minato looked down at his son in surprise, but Naruto had taken a hold of his father's necklace and hidden his face on his shoulder now. He looked at Daichi questioningly. Daichi rose his eyebrow much more of a very light astonishment, but he didn't seem surprised at all. Then he turned his eyes to Minato.

'I don't think anything that was said then can be taken seriously, but if you don't want me to bring him along then I won't…' he muttered, looking to the side. 'But then a dinner that he was promised already wouldn't be anything I would be able to participate.'

And if the kid got the political talks correctly he wouldn't have problems with understanding what he wanted to say. The two way advantaged doors were always a good alternative for someone who seemed to be pushed against his own choice, but completely not helping him to choose the right answer. But he was no one to teach the kid the mistakes he could make.

'They certainly looked like they had a meeting with you.' Oh, he'd been looking forward to whatever Daichi would make his dear council go through. Kushina had been bad enough, but she didn't have Daichi's political weight to back her up.

'Would you like to come over for dinner?' he asked, easily adjusting his son on his hip with one arm. 'Naruto mentioned he had a dinner program with Gaara-sama before and-'

'Gaara hates me.' said a soft, suddenly depressed voice.

'What?'

Minato looked down at his son in surprise, but Naruto had taken a hold of his father's necklace and hidden his face on his shoulder now. He looked at Daichi questioningly. Daichi rose his eyebrow much more of a very light astonishment, but he didn't seem surprised at all. Then he turned his eyes to Minato.

'I don't think anything that was said then can be taken seriously, but if you don't want me to bring him along then I won't…' he muttered, looking to the side. 'But then a dinner that he was promised already wouldn't be anything I would be able to participate.'

And if the kid got the political talks correctly he wouldn't have problems with understanding what he wanted to say. The two way advantaged doors were always a good alternative for someone who seemed to be pushed against his own choice, but completely not helping him to choose the right answer. But he was no one to teach the kid the mistakes he could make.

Oh… Something said at the time of the fight, then. No wonder, Minato had been too busy getting Daichi out of sight to be able to pay attention to what the kids were talking about.

'Aw, baby… I'm sure Gaara-sama didn't mean it.' Especially considering it wasn't even really Gaara speaking at all… Naruto looked up at him uncertainly.

'He called me a monster.' Minato made a face at that. He hated when people said those things to Naruto, because it wasn't fair and he never could do anything about it because no one dared to do it with the blonde's father close.

'Everyone says things they don't mean every now and then, baby.' he said softly, smiling down at the little blonde. 'You told me you hated me and you don't right?' Almost before he could finish his sentence Naruto's eyes widened in panic and he suddenly clamped his tiny arms around his neck in a desperate clutch.

'No, no! I love you, daddy! I didn't mean it! I'd never hate you!' he could never, ever have meant something so horrible!

'I know, I know… calm down, baby…' waited for the little blonde to lose a bit the chocking hold and hugged him back.

'So… are Gaara-sama and Kazekage-sama invited over?' Naruto was silent for a second or two, but then nodded firmly. 'Good.' Turning the smile to Daichi, he asked. 'Want to go straight to my house and have me pick Gaara-sama?'

No need to mention Daichi hated the cold. He'd had enough missions with him stealing his blankets to know how much the redhead appreciated snow.

'If that wouldn't be a problem.' said Daichi with a light smile also. He didn't think he would be getting any sort of food now, he was actually planning on going back to his room where he would get rid of all the rich clothes and sacrifice the rest of the evening for folding the complicated ties and muslins, but it seemed the fate had other plans for him 'I guess I'll have to take the kid of yours then. Carrying two kids at once won't be comfortable.'

He wasn't very thrilled at the idea of spending the time with the brat who disliked him anyway, but he didn't mind getting around with him for a while. Being around Minato from now on meant being around Naruto and if he couldn't favorize the kid, he could at least try to stay on neutral terms with him. And if not now, when he was wearing all this blingy stuff, looking like a far off sign to enemies everywhere and being noticeable as a high person to everyone, then when? If a kid resisted the shiny, he could as well just forget about the whole matter.

He had little to no idea how to get more approachable to the little brat (who hated him anyway, did he mention that? All kids seemed to dislike him after all). Without another useless words, he reached out for the kid.

Hopefully, the rings wouldn't take much of a harm for being pushed against skin with some heavier objects. But even if they did, he didn't really care for them. They were just relicts that needed to be donated to museum and he didn't do that only because of Chiyo's glaring eye every time he tried to smuggle it out of the castle. Legendary Suna rings and all that. Oh, and they were useable when he wanted to show off. But for such occasions he could as well wear his wife's modern earrings that looked like a freaking jewelry shop dangling at each ear. Nobody in Konoha even could tell they were woman's gemstones, so it was no big deal.

At the idea of being held by the Kazekage Naruto made a face that was oddly reminiscent to the one he'd made when he'd told him he was grounded. Only more leaning towards horror than disbelief.

'Daddyyy…' Naruto was suddenly digging short, sharp nails into his shoulders.

'You don't have to worry about that, Kazekage-sama.' Minato said amiably, passing the little kid to his jounin's arms. 'That's more Kakashi-kun's job that the kage from Suna's, just please don't pick a fight with sensei in my absence, I'm afraid he finished that bottle last night and is still suffering the consequences.'

The Hokage had yet to notice the way Kakashi was looking at the Kazekage, but that had probably more to do with the fact he was staring at the older man and not at his student. Naruto went to the teen's arms with visible relief, despite the fact he could have perfectly well walked on his own. Better not to tempt his luck.

'Anything I should tell Baki-san or Chiyo-sama?'

'That I won't be bringing any leftovers.' said Daichi, glancing toward the jounin and frowning at the glance he got back. Kakashi looked at him like if he was a new sort of an animal he didn't know if was nice and friendly or if it could bite his Hokage's hands off. But he decided not to comment on that and hid his hands under his arms once again 'By the way, when I left the house, I left Gaara in my bed, sleeping. I don't know if he is still there, but I'd suggest starting a research from that place.'

He glanced back to the jounin. Kakashi still looked at him like at two-headed zebra at zoo, which looked normal, only the mouth of the second head was covered in blue foam.

'Is something wrong?' Kakashi shivered, then shook his head quickly.

'Oh no, I was just admiring the new outfit.' he said quickly. But his look didn't lessen for a one millisecond. Daichi had smiled like if he heard a good joke.

'Yes, with Shukaku throwing a mad party and other nice activities.' he said with a smirk. Nothing could destroy his humor now 'If you're there you can check if the place is still left in one piece by the way. I don't know if he will wake up though, it's the first time I saw him in that state too.'

And that was worrying, but hopefully Baki had an eye on the child. In his duties were also protecting the rest of family members of Sabaku before death, that including all life activities. But if he didn't get any signal from him yet, so hopefully everything was all right. Minato kept staring at the older man with wide eyes, but after a second or two reverted to his normal smile.

'If something was wrong, you'd know.' The alarm was now placed on the back of his neck, wasn't it? But for Gaara to be actually sleeping…? That was amazing. He had no idea the seals would work that well. 'I'll have a look either way, don't worry. Just get comfortable and, well, you know.' he nodded at Kakashi. Which meant get the ink, and more importantly, turn on the heaters to the max.

'Again?' Naruto looked less than thrilled about having to slowly having to personify a steamed bun.

'Naruto, be nice. Sunanins are very weak against cold. They can't handle cold, or ride boats without getting sick or swim-'

'But we can't handle the heat anyway and they didn't even give us a room with air c-' Minato immediately jumped his son and covered his mouth before he had a chance to say the forbidden words and launch Daichi into a soliloquy regarding the waste of resources and how air conditioner was for hospital only in the emergency wing…

'Yeees, yes, but forgive and forget, is that right? Ah-hahaha… I might take a few minutes, but I'll be back as soon as possible.'

He nearly decided to do the quick thing and teleport to Daichi's room, but who knew who'd be there besides Gaara and he didn't want to let anyone but the Kazekage know he could get inside without anyone knowing. He'd take a run for it. Grinning to himself, he quickly dumped the robes on Kakashi and the hat on a rather pleased Naruto's head, then waved at the trio.

'Please behave.' he added as an afterthought, not really specifying who the comment was directed to. A moment later, he was gone in a flash that had the falling snow momentarily go against the direction of the wind. Daichi stared after him for a moment, then turned to both kids with a little sour expression and pulled on the Hokage's hat, making it go down deeper onto Naruto's head. Only because he didn't react, didn't meant he hadn't heard what was said.

'Next time you'll visit I'll give you the air conditioner.' he said, moving to the direction of Hokage's home 'And then I'll give you the bill for using it, counted in toys and missions. You will enjoy being a trainee of Suna while being in Konoha, I assure you, brat.'

Kakashi only squinted his nose, which was barely visible and readjusted the hat on Naruto's head, only to give the Kazekage a wary glance. Daichi didn't like that. Without a word he caught the Hokage's robes off the grey-haired nin and started folding them, much to the teens' distaste.

'But I'm sure you wouldn't mind listening a bit about what air conditioning means on the desert, right?' he muttered, and then, before Kakashi had chance to protest, he started his monologue. Which, considering his last time he did it, had gained in length for another three hours. Nothing could beat experience he had gained through the years after all.

Kakashi had only grimaced, but made a polite face when the man glanced toward him. It was not long before they could reach the Hokage's mansion, but it seemed that it would take them awhile since the Kazekage slowed down his speed, even if he was starting to shiver from cold. So he shut up his mouth, opened his ears, and suffered from numbers, facts and speculations. He would never buy an air conditioner to his own house. Never.

It took him two minutes to reach the mansion, giving the poor guards outside a fright when he stopped only a few feet away from him, seemingly come out of nowhere, unlike his chuunin, who didn't seem to notice other than for a passing greeting.

'Hello. I'm looking for Chiyo-sama, if possible.' he let the guards take him inside, nodded to Baki, then waited for the old lady to make act of presence. Apparently, she was done packing the mushrooms, because the guards looked noticeably less ill. Or maybe it was just the fact the murderous atmosphere of the past days was gone.

A few minutes later, the grey-haired lady stepped out of another room, carrying the plain teacup with something that smelled like chamomile tea, only was completely violet and sparkled in the stronger light.

'Hello, brat.' she said playfully, sitting at the table where the Hokage was left at 'Is there anything I can do for you? Or did my grandson had finally got under the skin of the council of yours and they had murdered him finally, like they always said they should? I wouldn't be surprised if you came because you can't recognize whose body it is.'

'I think they came quite close to it, I think it's the first time I have seen Utatane-san's hair in anything but the most perfect of buns.' Minato answered with a smile, giving the older woman a polite bow. 'Actually, I came to pick Gaara-sama and let you know that both him and Kazekage-sama will be having dinner at my house. I want to take the chance to finish everything as soon as possible… I heard he was sleeping?'

Chiyo looked at him for a moment in silence, then took one of the spoons and started digging into the cup. As it came, the watery sparkling substance was nothing else but a jelly.

'Yes, quite soundly as well.' she said, swallowing the bite of the substance 'It's quite amazing thing that he is not collapsing into any kind of coma, his heart and brain works perfectly well. What I'm concerned about is the fact he completely doesn't move and I had to move him to the other side to not let him get bedsores. It would be awful if sleeping would disturb his blood circulation. His whole body seems to be disoriented about how to work lately, so be aware of that he might act strangely. But bring them home before midnight. Both.' she added with pressure 'I want to keep an eye on the brats to not let them do anything stupid after everything had calmed down.'

'I'll do my best to do so, but it all depends on Kazekage-sama and how squirmy he gets.' Though considering there wouldn't even be much needlework involved and much less demon blood, everything should be okay. 'Medically speaking, how are the both of them?'

The woman stopped the munching, tinkling the spoon in the brim of the teacup.

'Daichi had fractured bones in all his twenty fingers and a hand that looked like if a shark had bitten on it, but I repaired that.' she said, looking at the blond 'I'm afraid the scars will have to stay though. Personally I would just let him starve for another day as he got a strong beating against his initial organs and I don't know if they will be able to handle the food. But since he ate the breakfast like nothing it seems he gets fine, as usual. As for Gaara…'

She stopped for a moment, musing with pursed lips and then dug for another spoonful of jelly into the cup.

'…we don't really know. He seems to be completely unaware of the fact he doesn't have the sand protection anymore.' she said carefully and took another moment to suck on the gelatin 'It seems also that his lack of sleeps had started to take its toll on his real health since now Shukaku doesn't pump chakra into him. But what results of that would be we don't really know either. I only hope he won't suddenly drop dead as in his never-ending sources of chakra he originally missed so many meals it would kill any kid at his age. I tried feeding him but he doesn't seem to connect the growling of the stomach with hunger and refuses when he is concerned with anything else. That's all I can say for now.'

The blond thought about it.

'I don't think this lack of angry mad weaver is anything permanent, Chiyo-sama.' he said seriously. 'The seals aren't strong enough for that. I think Daichi just shocked the hell out of rabid mongoose and the thing is there licking its wounds.' He scratched the back of his head, as he often did when deep in thought. 'I want to do something before all of you leave. Got any jounin you can trust who is particularly adept at silver work?'

Maybe that would be a weird thing to ask, but Minato was willing to bet that out of the group, more than three would know at least something about it. In Sunagakure, it seemed like almost everyone specialized in some sort of art, especially crafts and theater. Chiyo shrugged and while still munching, pointed out with a spoon behind the window at the person who seemed to be taking care of some luggage outside.

'Ask Yura, he has ambition to become a council member so of course, he does everything that is not needed on that kind of stool.' she muttered, then looked at Minato 'Maybe I could ask old Ebizo if he wanted to do anything, but he is old and his hands are not as good as previously. But if you're willing to wait for another week, I bet he would make something very good looking.'

'I'm more interested in how it works.' The blond said sincerely. The last thing anyone needed was Shukaku doing whatever he did to blind and deafen the little kid. He already had an idea of what to do, but it still needed a little more work. He would explain to the old lady tomorrow. As for now… taking the fact he had the old lady all for himself right now… 'Important topics aside, old lady.' he smiled at her innocently. 'What about an indecent proposition?'

Chiyo slowly rose her eyebrows, then laid down the spoon, watching the blonde intensely.

'You're fifty years too young to talk about ability to make me blush.' she said 'But if you really want it, I would never deny a nice man warming up my side, hohohoho!...' But still, one eye of hers, looked at him with awareness that could be found only in ninjas. Minato laughed back, trying very hard not to dwell on the mental images.

'You flatter me, Chiyo-sama, but I was thinking of something more on the lines of a deal…'

The old lady had calmed down, getting back to intense watching through the squinted eyes. The spoon clinked in her hands once, being hot at the surface of the table.

'You want to make a deal with me?...' that seemed to be like taken out of some comedy, the Hokage didn't seem to be the person who would want to make deals with her nor did he had capabilities to do so. But it was indeed as sudden as interesting 'What kind of deal, brat?'

'Well…' Minato played lightly with the cylinders in his necklace. 'I found this recipe… It's called 'red velvet cake'… Takes buttermilk, butter, flour, cocoa… So many fat, sweet things that make my arteries cry just from looking at them too long…'

The dark eyes glinted in the light.

'I like how does that sound, I really do.' she said, playing with the spoon 'But I bet there's also a rich payment for that kind of treat, isn't there?' And really, it was something she never heard of so it was probably a price that could disturb her personally. Minato didn't just go around and propose luxury recipes to her to bake them later. Her mind's sharpened in alert. The seventh sense also didn't stay silent. No wonder, since the whole situation seemed to be weird. 'But who knows, maybe I will be willing to pay it. Spill, brat.'

'Well, you see... two days ago, sensei happened to do a very irresponsible thing with that funny bottle you brought as a gift...'

Five minutes later, a very pleased Minato followed the old lady to Daichi's room, looking at the curled occupant of the bed.

Gaara lied on the side, curled up to teddy and sucking his thumb like a little child whom he was not supposed to be already and seemed to be completely swooned in that cocoon that could be sheets days ago. The old woman looked at the image for a moment in silence, not being able to swallow the idea of the redhead sleeping, but then she just came over and shook the kid, not very gently.

'Wake up, kid, it's time for dinner.' The loud scared scream that the kid let out made her jump back immediately though. Gaara stared at her with wide opened eyes like if he saw a ghost, then turned his eyes to Minato in the frozen fright. It seemed that idea of waking was also new to him.

'Hello, Gaara-sama.' the blond said gently, crouching down so he was a little lower than eye level with the kid and a less threatening figure. 'Do you know who I am?'

Gaara stared at him without changing his expression for one moment. Then he blinked and frowned.

'Not a cookie.' he said in unamused mutter.

'Nope, that I am not.' The blond said with a chuckle. 'I'm Naruto's father, remember?'

Gaara ignored the question and started looking around the room with deepening frown. It was completely not right. He wasn't there a moment ago. He was in completely different place. How come he was here suddenly? He turned to the blonde.

'I know Naruto.' he said, then hoped down the bed to search under that nicely folded hill of clothes. Maybe there was some kind of tunnel to there and he just didn't notice when he was taken out of there? But he was promised a cookie! How could they?

With a force, he looked under the clothes, then with a frown, moved to the other side of the room where he could look under the luggage. No. Not there also… He rose his head and stared at the blond and old bunny.

'Where's dadder?' he asked, not really knowing what kind of word he wanted to say, but since daddy didn't get angry at being called 'daddy' anymore but wanted to be called 'father' also, it seemed like the right solution 'When did you come here?'

'Just now.' if Minato thought that what the redhead was doing was freaky, he certainly didn't show it, but that was normal on him. It seemed like the kid was either very confused or had forgotten a very big chunk of things, strangely, not-Naruto-included. 'Kazekage-sama will be having dinner at my home, and Naruto wanted to know if you'd be interested in joining us.'

Gaara tilted his head to the side, still confused. He didn't notice anyone coming in, just as he didn't notice getting out of the strange place. But at the mention of Naruto and joining, he nodded, feeling like if it was the most right thing to do. If Naruto was there it was probably fun. He didn't see him for so long he had already started missing him. So he wanted. Of course he did.

'Good.' offering his arms, Minato smiled at the little boy. 'Want me to carry you? It'll be faster that way.'

Faster being a very, very large understatement. Gaara looked at him for a moment with unease. The man was offering his arms to him again and so willingly. It was suspicious as people rarely did that if anytime at all. But then, it was Naruto's father and he did that before. So it seemed like if he could trust him after all. Then he nodded and walked up to the awaiting arms.

'Will I get that cookie then?' he said, clinging to the loose material 'They said I will get a cookie.'

'There probably are cookies home, but I'm not sure they'll be the ones you like.' he said, remembering how he had rejected the normal ones and considering he wasn't going to make batter with blood or pennies. 'There will be ramen, though. Is that okay?' he nodded to a jounin that approached with a small cloak for the kid to wear and pulled him close, one hand absently stroking his neck like he usually did Naruto to calm him.

Gaara closed his eyes in delight as the hand started going up and down his neck, the new kind of pleasure he never thought of being able to achieve from someone else's touch. A big advantage of being carried by that man, he had to admit. Now he had even less feelings to not trust him and cuddled himself even closer, making it hard for anyone wanting to make him wear anything. But then his invisible brows furrowed lightly in confusion.

'Is it made of cookies?'

Naruto usually told him about how delicious ramen was, but he rarely said anything else beside talking how it was made of 'pasta and meat and yumm'. And he said there were many flavors. It didn't really matter, he wanted to try it anyway, but that cookie was still bothering him. Not that he liked sweets, but he was promised it would be a cookie he will definitely like and wanted to try it anyway. Just to see if he really would.

Minato didn't bother with getting the kid's arms through, considering how little time he'd be wearing it and just covered him with it almost completely as he walked to the door.

'Nnnot really… It's usually made of noodles and broth… egg, um… dried seaweed…' he was sure Naruto could have already mentioned all possible topics in this side of fire country, but Minato, like everything else, limited himself to ingest what was in front of him without really paying attention to it, as he was usually with his mind busy somewhere else. 'And more things Naruto will be able to explain better. We better get going, though, are you ready?'

The redhead nodded, not really being aware of what he had agreed for.

'Okay, hold on tight.' he nodded to the old lady. 'Enjoy your night off babysitting… And please stop trespassing in the Nara grounds, Chiyo-sama. Deers have been crying themselves to sleep each night.'

'Oh, don't worry about it, I won't.' said the old gran happily like if the admitting that didn't put her in the bad light of a crime 'But it's a shame, they have such interesting fields and don't use it at all…' She didn't mention she had actually saw what she wanted to see on the whole grounds anyway, so there was no use in saying that now. Too late. But Minato didn't have to know that.

Too bad he did. Suspected it, anyway, he really didn't seem to think Chiyo would waste her time trespassing if she didn't have anything she wanted to steal from there anyway.

'I'll see you tomorrow then, take care.' he readjusted Gaara in his grip to make sure he wouldn't be in any dangerous position, and then sped off into the night. This time it took him less than thirty seconds to get home. It was a downhill run after all.

'We are here.' he said happily, opening the door and getting in without letting go of the kid in his arms still. He wasn't surprised to see Daichi very much into what seemed to be the beginning of point three of why air conditioner was a completely needless luxury while Kakashi agonized on the floor and Naruto cowered under the Hokage's hat as if he could somehow block the uninterrupted stream of words coming from the older man. And it had only taken him half an hour, hm. Must be the speed version. 'We are back!'

At this point, the grey-haired head immediately turned to the side, like if it was held on springs and the flood of numbers that seemed to pressure the people in the room toward the floor. Kakashi stood up and ran up to the blonde with tears in his eyes, like if he just got the news one of another of his friends had died in the battle.

'Senseiii!'

…and then he hid himself behind his back. Daichi blinked with surprise, then looked at Minato. Gaara in his hands looked like a completely terrified homeless cat that just got shaken out of his mind for no reason. Even the red hair stood out more puffy at the ends, but it was probably the effect of the way Minato liked to travel. He remembered once being grabbed by him on one dangerous point of the mission as they were discovered by massive forces of enemies. Those forty three seconds of his life turned his next three hours to a muddy vertigo of colors, vomiting and sea sickness on land. He really wanted to murder Kushina for wanting to feed him on every occasion she had. Really.

'Welcome back.' he said simply and walked up to the blond, to take the redhead into his hands. Gaara seemed to be so clawed into the shirt of Minato it seemed he was not going to let go of it even if he begged. But once he got him out of the hold, the hand had loosened by itself. 'Gaara.' he said in acknowledgement, stroking his back with amused smile. The kid didn't even look up at him.

'Dadder.' he muttered. Daichi stopped the stroking. What?

'…ladder?...' he muttered with a frown, not understanding the meaning of the word that was probably half muted by the shocked mouth of the kid. He looked at Minato suspiciously. What ladders had to do with anything? At the inquisitive look Minato just shrugged, a playful smirk on his face.

'I know Kakashi-kun, I know…' The Hokage said compassionately once the little redhead was gone, turning to pat the younger man on the head. 'I lived almost ten years with that. He adds more information each and every year…' More demographics and statements who knew where they came but that came nonetheless. 'Air conditioner is the devil, I'm sure that by now Baby #1 and #2 understood it perfectly, Kazekage-sama. Right babies?'

Naruto immediately took the chance to hide behind his father, taking the chance to spy at the redhead in the Kazekage's arms apprehensively, but making no move to get closer. Kakashi nodded feverishly, like if there was no other known bright truth and hugged himself more to the back of the blond like a kid that saw a monster in the closet and even if it was assured the monster wasn't there, was still afraid of it. Daichi rolled his eyes.

'Kids are so soft these days.' he said, then eyed the blonde for a moment, hoping to maybe catch the sign about the 'ladder' thing, but since it came blank to him he just decided to let it go. The redhead slowly melted in his hands, like a block of ice into a toy filled with warm water. He looked at him again, not stopping stroking. It was visible that Gaara was still a bit shaken from what's happened. He decided to sit down on the sofa, ignoring the fact it was the place the little blond occupied previously.

'Are you okay now?' he asked, feeling a bit tense about the fact he had to tend the kid on eyes of everyone. He tried to hold it strict to the unemotional ninja rules, but it still looked cuddly as the kid was simply glued to his chest. Gaara blinked. Father smelled nice. Not the way he would want to have his cookie smelling, but he liked it. It was different, old smell. From clothes. He liked it. His tummy liked it less as he was still shaken, but it was slowly getting back to normal.

'I don't feel like eating now.' he muttered and turned his head to the side, not ungluing his cheek from the chest. The he noticed Naruto and he smiled. 'Hello.'

'Ah, sorry, Gaara-sama, I should have warned you I run fast…' the older blond rubbed the back of his head self-consciously, though he honestly didn't get what was so special about it - it left almost everyone feeling queasy. There was nothing better in the world that running at such speed. Not to mention how much time did it save at morning to get to the job on time. Either way Naruto seemed to enjoy it, which really should have given the boy's father a clue as to what point of comparison he was using.

As if agreeing with his thoughts, Naruto nodded enthusiastically to the 'fast' comment. Everyone knew that his father was the fastest man in Konoha and probably even the whole Fire country, if not the world. Not even Gai could compare, and he reeeally was fast when he took of those legwarmers. It was then that he realized that Gaara had spotted him and didn't seem to be acting like if he were someone with a very contagious disease… but he still didn't quite dare leave his father's side.

Minato gave him a little push, with Naruto looking up at him worriedly. At his father's nod, however, he gave a few steps closer, but didn't really reach for the older boy a she usually did, instead clasping his hands behind his back and rocking on the balls of his feet nervously a little.

'…hi.'

Gaara didn't stop smiling, but also didn't move from the hold he was in. The hugs he got from father were rare so he didn't want to miss out any of them, even if he was torn between going up to Naruto to hug him and get back to the arms of father again. Only when Daichi had finally pushed him off to the floor out of uneasiness, he stood up on it straight, a little crestfallen at the lack of warmth. The house they were in was actually pretty cold, so the loss was much greater than he thought it would be. So, when he saw that Naruto was still standing like that, indecisive, he simply walked to him and hugged close, as it was second best source of warmth he knew in this room.

'Is ramen made of cookies?' he asked plainly 'Your father says it's made of stuff.'

Naruto looked at the redhead latched to him with wide, confused eyes. Apparently his dad was right and Gaara hadn't meant it, you didn't hug people you disliked and the people in the village certainly didn't pile to give him hugs… Relaxing, he hugged the smaller body back tightly.

'Nooo, ramen can't be made of cookies!' Naruto said with a sort of horrified and whiny voice, making the other occupants of the room sweat drop slightly. 'It's made of noodles, and then it's made of yummy stuff like miso ramen, pork ramen, shrimp ramen, beef ramen…' Well it seemed that a topic to rival the length of the explanations on air conditioner Daichi could get rolling had finally appeared.

'Baby, why don't you go find an advertisement from Ichiraku's? You can show Gaara-sama the photos and what each thing has inside, okay?' With a nod, Naruto immediately let go of Gaara, and grabbing him by the hand with the same ease as if he were Hinata or Neji, he dragged him to the kitchen. Finally some peace… Which suddenly made him realize something he had initially missing. He wasn't feeling one bit overheated. Minato looked around, surprised by the lack of prepared material, and more importantly, heaters. He turned to Kakashi questioningly.

'Where's everything?'

Kakashi looked back.

'I could either listen to the lecture or prepare everything?' he squeaked in the tiny voice and once the question mark was dotted, he vanished from the spot, immediately running after the ink and turning up the heaters to the maximum, which resulted in a warm atmosphere a few seconds later. And a burning desert heat even more seconds later.

'I think that's enough.' said Daichi looking at the blond like if he had gone mad for allowing that as the sweat started forming on his forehead. Even Sunanians born in the Sand village had problems with accommodating to temperatures close to molting lava. He could stand during the seventy five degrees the most and only if he was really desperate. What was happening in the room was probably getting out of that thin line. 'Don't you think so?...'

'Hmmm...' Minato pursed his lips in a thoughtful expression, giving the older man a curious look.

Daichi looked back, his expression sour and slowly getting near his last barricades of patience.

'Don't tell me that temperature is fine with you.'

That made the blond crack a small smile. Was the other kidding? If Daichi was having trouble, he was about to melt.

'Not really… but I wouldn't mind seeing you sweat a little.' the younger man said, and sure, maybe it could be easily taken as more of Minato's common, friendly banter and a small jab at the redhead, if it hadn't been because of what had happened last night. With another absurdly innocent smile, Minato left to adjust the thermostat to something more humanely bearable, leaving the Kazekage momentarily alone.

Daichi stared at him with surprise. Could he really be referring to…? He didn't expect such a slick suggestion coming through the innocent smile of his. Minato still seemed to have that kind of childishness in that facial expression he remembered from the early years. Only then that usually could million of things. So probably it was all because… um. And thankfully he could blame the light blush on the heat. He was a man who never blushed because he was a prime ninja in his own country and lived under such heats it was inhuman to make him blush. But now at least he had a rare excuse.

Which didn't mean he didn't toss a glance at two nice pieces of ass that kept walking in front of him, unaware of where his eyes landed. He closed his eyes. Bad timing.

'I'm sure you would, but for that you still are too weak.' he said, smirking a little and crossing his arms. 'I wonder if there will come any day that any of the kages will be able to wear me out a bit or do I really have to wait for another heart attack to make me feel my skin going clammy.'

Minato didn't turn around, but his retreating laughter could be easily heard. A challenge? Minato wans't exactly like Gai, who felt that every challenge should be immediately met with swift success, regardless of how idiotic it happened to be. Not strange, considering the most idiotic happened to come from his own mouth. No, Minato didn't really feel he needed to show anything anyone… But. When something interested him? He didn't like anything better than to be told he couldn't just to want him do it all the more. And besides, teasing Daichi had always been a world of fun.

Daichi didn't hesitate to watch Minato walking away, enjoying how the body moved on its own, ideal shape (okay, maybe some would say that the blonde was not so perfect, too skinny or too weak for a ninja of his standards… but they could as well go and stare at someone else, right?). It was a pleasure to just see the man and the feelings he's got when he watched Minato just moving like that were actually not as sexual as he might've thought they could be. Sure, the blonde was a walking tease and it was hard to not to eat him with eyes once all those layers of clothes were off (at a very hot summer in Konoha Minato had even stripped down to his shorty pants… and yes, he had failed the mission that day. Badly. But so did Kushina, so it was a draw) but now…

The feeling rippling under his skin tasted more sweet than anything else. Gods, he held so much adoration toward the blonde. He could just close the door, switch the lights off and hold him close like that until the world would crumble around them. Or maybe even longer. He wouldn't mind just looking at him as long as he could.

He bit on his lips, quietly looking at his fingers on which big fancy rings shone. They were treasures of his own land and very old as that, he knew. But comparing to how he felt they seemed to be cheap and dull. How poets could have compared affection to gold and diamonds, he had no idea.

'A-hem.' said something standing near him. He rose his gaze a bit, finally noticing the grey-haired teen watching him with that strange kind of glare again 'The ink. I brought it.'

Daichi rose his eyebrows and looked back at the kid. After a moment of pregnant silence, he had finally caught the message and moved away from the desk. Kakashi left the tray with liquid on it. Then he looked back at him, and, like if he's got afraid, he had bowed down in the pose of an awaiting commando and hid his gaze under his bangs. Daichi watched him with the growing unease. Tell him to go away?... He didn't have any commands for the teen, but he didn't know if Minato didn't want anything from him still. It would be much better if the kid had loosened some of his etiquette, so he could do the same. And now his back strained again in the proud pose of a kage. Not really comfortable when he wore that rich, heavy coat. The silence emerged.

Kakashi smiled lightly. Yes, the uneasiness grew. Exactly the way he wanted it. Payback for uneasy heat on the desert was sweet after all.

And just because things couldn't get more awkward for the redhead, one of the doors opened ad thoroughly disheveled Jiraiya decided to make act of appearance, his face looking only one or two shades less green than that morning. The medicine he'd gotten from his frog friend had helped, but the alcohol in that bottle had been too much, even for him. He stopped dead on his tracks when he saw the Kazekage there, his expression going from unwell to downright bitter.

'What are you doing here?' he asked with no sense of finesse or proper etiquette. The wonders of being a legendary ninja, someone that had actually been a superior o this Suna brat and thoroughly hangovere'd. Daichi had stared back in silence, then rose his eyebrows as high as he could at the improper way of titling himself, especially in front of the other people, like the Captain of Konohan ANBU. How it was possible the man was not looking at what he was doing?... Could it really be that the alcohol took so much of him? But he had always knew that Jiraiya liked to drink a lot and held liquor well… He shook himself of the surprise and stood more loosely. If he knew that Suna alcohol worked like that on him sooner, he would probably make a good use of it earlier.

'I'm standing, contemplating my existence…' he muttered, watching his fingernails in the ignoring, impolite way that could only be the answer to the way the man addressed him before. Kakashi looked at it with widened eyes. If the hell was not supposed to break loose any time earlier, then the sirens were going off now surely '…waiting for the Hokage-sama to bring the ink to spread it over another part of my body just for the heck of my love to tattoos… nice, aren't they?' he said suddenly, bringing his hand close to Jiraiya's face, looking almost like if he was giving it to him to kiss it in the old way of admiring the kage. He juggled his fingers a bit, pointing at the rings at them, then slowly hid it under his crossed arms

'…actually, I was invited for a dinner with my son. Why, didn't you know about that? I'm sorry, I thought you were invited too.'

'Sorry, I'm not really into women's jewelry unless they're worn by beautiful women.' The sage said acidly. Maybe he'd have something a bit more subtle to say if it hadn't been because he had had that stupid bottle and now he felt like if someone was ringing war drums on his own head. The word 'dinner' almost made him shiver. 'Unlike others, I don't need invitation to this house.'

Daichi looked back with the same smug expression, not losing a bit of it, though all his insides cringed like two blocks of ice that had suddenly decided to mismatch. It was true he had envied many, including Jiraiya, the fact they could come and go to this house, even if they were only close to Minato on the working grounds, while he, his friend and protégé had to wait for his better day to actually get close to the house without having the ANBU breathing on his neck, with kunai between his shoulder blades. He balanced his body from one leg to the other.

'Is that so?' he said clearly, looking at the man's a little sickened face. As much as unfortunate was the meeting, seeing him suffer was a delightful image, especially after what he said to him in the hot springs 'And then I thought that a man who uses make up everyday would know how to appreciate that piece of foreign history… I was mistaken, I'm sorry.' Then he looked at his fingers again, only to hide the fact that his muscles tensed up a bit. Having an audience in Kakashi's person was still uncomfortable for him.

'And maybe you don't, but believe me, when I get invitation of that kind… I can use it well. Too bad no one is going to be around to witness it… I'm so sorry you won't be there. But don't worry, I'll tell you about it tomorrow morning.'

Oh, that brat… Jiraiya used paint as a show of respect to his teachers, and that brat knew it! Not to mention no one that used as much paint an eye shadow as any ninja from Suna had a right to talk about make up.

'Oh, that won't be necessary.' the older man said with a just-as-fake smile 'I'm sure Hatake and Naruto can inform me of it. I wouldn't want to crowd in anymore and break all that intimacy.'

Daichi regained his control, even when for a flicker of moment he just wanted to take off one of his highly expensive, completely uncomfortable shoes and aim at the white head to hear if it would make a hangoverish 'ding'.

'I'm sure it won't, Gaara can help them with it too if you want.' he said, then he turned himself to the side, tossing a glance at the teen. Kakashi didn't catch it at first, eyeing the ground, but once he did, he wished he didn't. The vile vibrations that started in the air were too hard to handle from such a hawkish gaze like the Sunagakure's first man's. 'I'm sure that Hatake will cooperate… and don't bother the kids, they are still young and there's no need from keeping them apart when they finally can play and forget about the whole world.'

'Well, that's simply terrible because it's Hatake's job to make sure that our beloved Hokage is safe and sound so the kids might have to stay mighty close-'

'What are they doing, daddy?' came a small voice from the side.

'Playing at subtlety, baby.' the Hokage answered, not moving an inch from his position as the blue eyes moved from one member of the trio to the next. Naruto stared at his father for a moment, then at the three males and made a face at the distinct feeling the room was about to blow up from bad vibes alone.

'…that's playing?'

'I'm afraid none of them are good enough at it to be considered serious.'

The old man cringed and gave his student a scolding look.

'Minato…'

'Sensei.' the blond countered sweetly, which seemed to be enough to make the old man shut up for the moment being. 'I'm glad to see that you are feeling well enough to be up.'

'Er, yes…' That smile… That kind overly cute smile on Minato was never a good sign.

'That's really wonderful, indeed.' his student continued, cutting out any sort of reply from the sage. 'As you just were kind enough to point out just, Kakashi-kun will be busy taking care of my well being and helping me out with finishing Kazekage-sama's work… So I wanted to request for you to make sure the kids don't get in trouble.'

Jiraiya paled.

'Ah...'

'Ero-sennin, you are gonna teach us some cool jutsu, right?' the little blond beamed immediately.

'I...'

'Oh, I'm sure you know some.' said Daichi, letting a polite smirk grace his face for a moment… okay, maybe longer than a moment. Or two moments 'You are a legendary sennin after all, so you probably know a lot of powerful mighty jutsus... it's impossible you forgot them all, right?' he said. Then he looked down at the little blond boy, seeing as the redhead shyly followed him, looking at the white-haired man in wonder. He saw him before, but not long enough to take a notice of him as much as he wanted to. Now the makeup and new kind of hairstyle were very interesting to not to stare, even discreetly. Though for Gaara words such as 'discreet' didn't really exist in his dictionary.

'Gaara, this is Jiraiya, the one of legendary three sennins.' he said, getting attention of the redhead for a moment 'He is very strong and known of to be trained well on battleground… wouldn't you like to know some of his secrets?' The redhead looked at his father tensed up, then turned his gaze back again at the man. His eyes widened slightly. Nobody wanted to train him before and especially not such high classed ninjas – beside the father, of course. He had never dreamed of such things to happen.

'Really?' he asked 'You will teach us?'

'Yes, sensei, will you teach them?' Minato's smile was still that blood-curling saccharine sweetness that was so goddamned terrifying it was almost enough to make him mindlessly agree to the inferno that was to make sure Naruto didn't get into a life threatening situation the moment you blinked.

'I… I would love to, but you see… I'm still not feeling too well, disrupted chakra because of alcohol poisoning…' he mumbled lamely.

'Is that so, sensei?' The oldest blond said concernedly.

'Yeah, he was really sick this morning.' his son piped in disappointedly, turning to explain to his friend 'He felt so, sooo bad that he summoned the old frog lady and she made him drink some really yucky stuff and that got him better, but she kept saying it was because he didn't mind his age and that he shouldn't drink weird stuff he was just given, because-'

'Maybe you should go lay down if you are feeling so badly, sensei.' The Hokage cut in once he sensed Naruto could extend on the details for the rest of the night. 'Maybe you'd feel a little better after some rest.'

The white haired man stared at him with a frown, directing an even more sanguinary expression to the Kazekage… only for his eyes to be called back to the two little kids staring at him expectantly. Leave his poor innocent student to this perverted old man or… babysitting. Minato's safety or… hyperactive little kids. Well… technically, as far as Suna's pedophilic standards went, Minato was way too old to be in any real danger, right?

'Well, Minato-kun… that's actually a splendid idea. I think I'll go right now… But first I think I'll have a shower. A long, hot shower…' he smiled benignly at the occupants in the room. 'In fact, I think I'll make it a bath. Enjoy your tattooing, Kazekage-sama…' With that, he retreated into the private rooms of the house calmly. A moment later, the sound of the pipes going full flown could be heard.

Daichi looked after white-haired ninja with the expression like if he was biting through the very sour lemon. At the sound of pipes going off, his teeth gritted against each other with unpleasant sound of two stones crushing. Then he turned on his heels and looked right at the blond, masking his facial mimics quick enough to face him with neutral, completely undisturbed mood. He wanted to have enjoyable bath? Then he will. They'll see who will retire first. If Jiraiya wanted to waste gallons of water near him, he was also ready to take just as desperate steps. He glanced downside.

'Kids, go play with yourself somewhere else… like hide-and-seek on the third floor or something.' he muttered, giving Gaara a not very collected pat on the head. The redhead didn't seem to be moved by the lack of emotion much – more, his face twisted in confusion, then melted into a pleasure of the starved dog who just got a piece of high-classed meat. Soon enough, they were out of the room, with the young Sabaku more than eager to accomplish his father's wishes. Daichi glanced toward them, then turned his face toward the blond.

'Let's get started, shall we?' he asked with the tone he usually used when he was preparing himself and his people for battle. His main purpose was not to get entangled in any kind of competition after what he did with council, but it was that white-haired fart who started it first. And he was Kazekage, so he was not going to let him go away with that so easily. The Hokage didn't even try to hide the amused expression. That was one of the things Kushina loved to do when he forbade them from talking to each other in hopes that would lessen their constant fighting. The wonders of passive aggression, nothing like some wasted water to drive a Sunanin to claw at the walls in despair. It would probably have been politically correct to go stop the sage from further enraging their guest, but the not-exactly small part of Minato that couldn't help loving messing with other people just felt compelled to be a little bit meaner to the redhead. Just to make up for the fact he had been really, really nice to him as of late.

It was for that reason he caught his favorite student by the neck as the teenager slowly moved to follow the kids.

'I don't think Pakkun has yet repaid us for such a faux pass while in Suna, Kakashi-kun, why don't you have him take a look after the kids?' It wasn't as if they would go far away, and if anything happened at all, the first one to know it would be Daichi. 'You are needed more here.'

Nothing about such a comment would have been suspicious, not even the fact that the tattoo he needed to do now, other than time consuming because of the numerous seals it needed to work, should be simple enough. No, nothing, if you hadn't been in the extended company of the Hokage and knew that he had a very pretty smile, but when that particularly pretty smile reached that angle where it went from nice to sweet, it could never mean anything good.

Kakashi looked at the blond for a moment, and even if the tiniest squeak of the protest wanted to force through his mouth at all, it didn't made through one teeth. Instead he just nodded and tried to not look at the other man, going along the rule that if you didn't see the danger, the danger didn't exist. And surely, Daichi's face had tensed up in the mask of something completely unharmful, and yet, seeming to be so unnatural that it could be only compared to the thick layer of wax on the skin. He didn't expect that turn of events, but also it didn't mean that he was going to back down on what was given to him. In silence, he made a few plain seals and tucked his fingers to his mouth. Soon enough, the same pair of lips had showed up in another hand he held up.

'Daini no Kuchi. Second mouth.' he thought as he couldn't open his lips at the moment he was doing the jutsu. One squeeze later and the golden dust was floating away just to the right destination. Then he shot the teen a freezing glare and turned around to slowly undo his heavy golden coat. The teen didn't seem to be very happy and glanced back rather daringly with the weird look of his that was not shutting down everytime he was around. It didn't matter. The teen was high ranked enough to know that if he opened his mouth to anyone about what he saw, the heavy consequences wouldn't miss him. And that was enough.

Minato's smile just widened at that. Oh, he had missed Daichi. He would miss him even more once he left, but it was nice to have him around nonetheless. The Hokage always appreciated things that remained the same. Suna hadn't changed, and neither had Daichi, and that was a wonderful thing for him. Ignoring the often-seen jutsu from the older man, Minato picked the cloak and left it at the couch as he waited for his student to summon his family's signature ninja animals. He took and extra minute to smile warmly at the cute little dog in a way that sent him, scrambling after the kids, then busied himself with making sure the brush, ink and needles were ready. Perfect.

He turned to announce he was ready to start when he realized that Daichi and Kakashi were again busy in a glaring at each other in a way that was all too reminiscent of the sage and the Kazekage. Perfect. It seemed his sensei had successfully brainwashed his poor innocent student. Getting alone time with Daichi would prove to be more challenging than originally expected.

'Hey, Kakashi-kun, are you ready?' he said, offering his student the box of latex gloves with an innocent smile. Kakashi looked at the blond for a moment in silence. Could that possibly mean?... He blinked, then slowly took the gloves into his hands. They felt light against his skin.

'I…' he said, turning around to look back at the other man. Daichi slowly rose his eyebrow in alarm, not understanding. The teen turned his head back and frowned. No. No matter what was the mission, he was not going to run away. Even if it was the Kazekage they were speaking of. Especially the Kazekage. The gloves sapped against his hands with a clasping sound. 'Yes.'

He barely knew what kind of tattoo he was supposed to do, but that couldn't be that hard, right? Daichi didn't think so. Without speaking he turned his gaze toward the blonde, thundering him with his gaze. What was the meaning of this?... He couldn't speak as much as he wanted to, because now, as his mouth were connected with the jutsu, useless words could blow his cover. And what sense would it be if it could be ignored or laughed at? But he had to be joking!... To let such a kid tattoo the back of a Kazekage himself? Tattoos were permanent! He was not going to wear squiggles for the rest of his life. With a quiet 'tsk' he turned his head to the side and crossed his arms, not indicating the slightest intention to agree to the situation. But he smoothened his face. Kakashi blinked, then looked at his Hokage.

'Can I start now?' he asked.

'Sure.' the blond said, approaching the Kazekage and giving him a 'friendly' push on his back that had him lying down on the table flat. He was glad the younger nin was busy concentrating on what he was about to do, as it gave him time to fully appreciate the dark lines that now were permanently etched in the redhead's subtly bronzed skin. His designs. His tattoos on Daichi's obscenely touchable skin, deep enough they would remain even if the area was wounded. Etched in the blood of a monster. Etched in poison.

He smiled, out of anything better to do. The knowledge –more like, the idea of it- both disturbed and thrilled him. His eyes rolled down the muscular back counting scars he knew the story of, scar he's put himself there and some he didn't know where they had come from until it landed on the redhead's bare arm. Unlike him, Daichi didn't bore a sign of ANBU. He brushed one of the lines on the redhead's back thoughtfully, with a finger, then suddenly withdrew it and put his hands on his lap, resisting the urge to actually sit on them. It seemed like if he always ended up touching the older man regardless of the fact he'd made a conscious decision not to.

Better to detour his attention to his student, who was about to… start tattooing on Daichi's back. Right away. Maybe Jiraiya-sensei had been right and he should have taught the younger man a little more about basics. Despite years of training, the silver-haired nin still retained that bad custom about wanting to rush into dangerous situations before being properly ready to handle them.

So he waited while the teen fumbled from one spot to the other, obviously having no idea where to start and only a vague notion of what exactly did he have to do. He waited a full minute, too, until the teen's visible eye hardened and the mask covering his features shifted in a way that indicated he was pressing his lips together. Waiiited until the needle was just an inch away from the redhead's skin.

'Hey, Kakashi-kun.' Minato said casually, cupping his chin on one hand. 'Did you know that Kazekage-sama once broke the hull of a warship during one of our missions?' he asked casually. 'He didn't even use a jutsu. Just punched it and it broke apart. Big chunks of metal everywhere.'

The grey-haired nin jumped at the spot, withdrawing the needle a few centimeters apart just to look at the blond with surprised gaze. Then he slowly got his eyes back to the man's back.

'R-really?...' he asked, getting back his hands into position. They shook quite visibly now. 'I'm impressed.'

Kazekage was not a man to mess with after all. It was hard to remember about it, even if the Kazekage glared at him, when his features were not as impressive. Daichi glances back at the grey-haired nin then smiled a little bitterly to himself. Yes, that was this special time of a month by then when he proposed a good solution and went ignored until he actually did what he said. He remembered standing in front of the ship, seeing people aiming at him and laughing at his sole presence and also the feeling of betrayal, the fact he was once again unfavored with Minato's attention and his own lack of patience to being ignored mixed up.

It exploded into rather nice punch that made the metal broken, his insides satisfied and his hand bruised pretty badly. But it was worth it when the blonde gawked at him with admiration and even bandaged his knuckles. He remembered wearing it for days until the circumstances led him to actual wounding and disposal of the material in favor of his actually bleeding arm. And the punishment of the Third also was remembered. Disobeying the superior was also a sin that the Kazekage couldn't forgive to anyone. He couldn't stand up straight for a month.

'It's strange how you seem to remember our past now just like that.' he murmured in a low tone, adding just a little too bit of attentive tone to it. It was not a voice one usually heard on the streets. Kakashi blinked, then slowly stilled. He felt suddenly completely out of place, like if he invaded a private scene where he wasn't supposed to be 'But yes, that was actually pretty daring of me. Should I apologize, I wonder?...'

He chose words carefully, knowing that them alone as for now made very little sense. But dang, the water splashing outside was already working on his nerves and he had to open his mouths sometime. He glanced back at the teen. The kid seemed to be undecided about what to do. It was not a good sign. He sighed.

'May I know what are you doing?' he asked in annoyed tone. Kakashi in answer jumped back again, then, looked around, unsure and a little panicked.

'Uh, I… I-right away!' said Kakashi, then chose what seemed to be a right spot at the half of a second and hit it with the needle. The words 'a little less than tender' would be a lie. Daichi 's eyes widened as he bit his lips in a tight lock, swallowing back the surprised shout from the unexpected pain that came out much bigger than he thought it would be. What was the kid doing? Did he want to nail him to the table or what?

Kakashi had immediately jumped back, seeing what kind of mistake he did. After needle was out of the skin, the Kazekage relaxed visibly. Once he gazed at the teen in outrageous glare, Kakashi was already kissing the floor in a dramatic bow.

'I'm sorry!...' he squeaked like a boar that was about to be slaughtered 'Very, very sorry!...' The last time he wanted to remember before his death were fists of an angry redhead. Even if those fists had punched through the ship.

'I'm impressed.'

'I was. So were the people in it.' he thought of adding that the redhead had also kept the full payment for that particular mission. Or how he needed every cent to cover his medical bills once the mission reports had reached the Sandaime Kazekage. It had been a fun, restful month of eating instant ramen and watching the bruises on Daichi's body change all the colors of the rainbow as they worked the process of healing.

'Well, I would call it stupid, rather than daring, but I've always appreciated results rather than finesse?' the Hokage chuckled lightly, eying with interest the reactions his student had and refusing to raise to the bait. 'I just thought it to be a nice anecdote Kakashi-kun would appreciate as of right now…'

He was glad he wasn't drinking anything when his student gave the first jab. He would probably snorted it up in a fit of laughter that he barely had a chance of suffocating before choking on it. Or have Daichi make him choke on it, to make the phrase more accurate.

'So much for not being afraid of a tattooing session, eh, Kazekage-sama?' the blonde said, giving the older man another not so subtle push on his back to get him back into the appropriate position. 'Kakashi-kun.' he made a beckoning gesture with his hand for the younger boy.

Kakashi looked at his sensei warily, then at the saffron haired man who didn't lose a bit from his angered gaze. Then in small steps he slowly came back to the Hokage. Maybe I he would not look at the Kazekage the man wouldn't bite his head off. One within reach, the blonde smiled at his student and ruffled his hair affectionately. His smile was normal this time.

'Want some help?'

The jounin looked at him with the gaze of the miserable puppy itself. He didn't dare to voice his favors, but the light skinning of his head could be noticed even by the low ranked rookies. If there were any low ranked rookies in the room. Minato smiled and ruffled the already tousled hair some more, then set to work. Taking a clean needle and one of his student's hand, the blonde lifted the teen's sleeve until it revealed a small expanse of bare arm, then showed him the sharpened point of the instrument.

'The first layer of skin is the epidermis. The ink needs to be placed right underneath it.' he illustrated the point by carefully making a small prickle on the pale skin of the teens' arm, knowing it would help him gauge the desired depth. 'The ink will spread on the damaged skin layer through both the epidermis and underneath. Once the tissue starts healing, the upper scar will scab and fall off, but the ink will end up trapped and connected by the collagen growth. Do it deeper and you might end up with a nasty infection.'

Kakashi nodded, looking at it with silent fascination. He had his tattoo already done, but he had never bothered to be interested with how it was really done, so the experience was new to him. He glanced at the other man, and reverted his eyes back just as quickly. Her caught a glance of Kazekage's eyebrows only, but the way they were rose on his forehead showed nothing but probably a very appalled amazement. And indeed, Daichi observed the process with nothing more but aghast feeling of absurd. He was teaching the kid now how to do a tattoo on his own back? What the heck Minato was thinking he was doing? The astonishment was too great to let him even speak.  
The blond smiled, content with the attention his student was paying to him. Kakashi might be a little rushed at times but other than that, he was brilliant.

'Normally seals are drawn on scrolls for summons or traveling, and I sometimes do it on skin with henna, like when we had undercover missions and didn't want to call attentions with the scrolls. This time the seals are set to work on the host by having Kazekage-sama use his chakra to force the host's chakra system to shut down…' He laughed a little embarrassedly.

'They aren't exactly perfect because I kind up most of those but… They serve their purpose. See look at…' he tailed off as he tried to point at the main seal when he saw that the redhead was gawking at him in a half turn, making his back impossible to pinpoint. Minato frowned at him. '…can you stay still? How am I supposed to teach my student good seals if you are moving around?' he gave him a reproachful look. "Next time I have to push you down I'm knocking you unconscious.'

Daichi turned to the right side obediently, but his gaze showed nothing of fear.

'I'd like to see you try.' he murmured, then laid his forehead on his hands and bit on his lips. The situation was not comfortable at all and it was outrageous that he was teaching the jounin on no other person than h I m. Like if he was a paper sheet for the beginners! His back was supporting the future of whole damn country, what was that blonde thinking? 'I'd rather stay awake through the whole process and if I'll end up with something any less than appropriate on my back I can promise you that someone will end up dead and that won't be me.'

And yes, Jiraiya was still having fun in his splashing bubbly bath. He could as well use that. Without any other choices he lowered his voice low enough to not be heard by the teen and muttered: 'So stay put and take off your clothes or I'll take care of that.'

He didn't really care at that point what Minato thought of him at that moment, so he didn't bother even looking at him. What mattered was the fact that the same words were spoken loud and clear in the other room and he made sure they could be heard. In the name of the thirsty people or something like that. Kakashi blinked, observing the back of the man carefully. What he saw was actually what he found out in the scrolls previously and he recognized some elements already. But he would never think of mixing the seals in that way. It truly was a great piece of art. He nodded, showing he understood what his sensei said.

Teacher and student jumped slightly at the sound of something heavy slamming into the floor, followed by a stream of curses with 'You goddamned-' being the only word that was remotely fit for reproduction. Minato immediately covered the jounin's ears.

'Sensei, there are kids in the house!'

Kakashi blinked, then looked at the side from where the noise was coming. Not that the blond had to take care of his vocabulary, everything Jiraiya said and he couldn't hear was already written in his books anyway. But he decided to not reveal the fact to the man and just stayed in silence, wondering if to activate his sharingan or not. For him it didn't seem as anything serious, but what could've made such behavior to happen?... Daichi smirked a little.

'Exactly, and we're doing here something very important so could you please not interrupt?' And just in case if Minato wanted to silence him, he pretended to be very absorbed by the table he was laying on and thus, ignored any kind of gaze that could be aimed at him.

'Minato!' the sage all but howled. The blond gave the redhead a scuff on the head and glared in the general direction of the sage's voice.

'Sensei, I'm not having an orgy, so please make your mind. Either you are feeling too bad and need to go to bed or good enough and you go babysitting.'

'…'

'Good, if we can-'

'I'll have Gamabunta eat him!' The blond stood up and opened the door to the bathroom, glaring at the sage as he held his throbbing forehead. When the bastard had decided to speak, he'd tripped and hit one of the faucets.

'Sensei, get out of there and go babysit.'

'….'

'Sensei.'

'…'

'Last chance. One more word and you are on kid duty for the rest of the night.'

'He started!'

'I'm having Kakashi tattoo him.'

'But that kid has no idea how to do those by hand.'

'Well, now he's learning.'

The older man seemed to consider this for several seconds, then slowly started to smile. His hangover felt just the tiniest bit better already. Rolling his eyes, his student slammed the door back closed and returned to his place on the table.

'Ignore him Kazekage-sama… toads don't really have teeth.' Which didn't mean Gamabunta wouldn't *try*, especially if the large Toad decided it didn't happen to like Daichi too much. Just that he wouldn't be chewed on. 'I'd suggest you to remain silent for a while, though.'

Daichi shrugged, and leaned his head over his elbows like if nothing had happened. But inside he was still snickering at the idea of what might've happened in the bathroom thanks to his speech.

'I don't think I have to say anything anymore, especially if I already made my vision of future quite clear.' but he didn't bother to dispel the jutsu. Not yet. The man didn't leave the bathroom after all, did he? Exactly his point. Kakashi blinked. He didn't really understand what was the man talking about, but it was probably one of those special talk only high-ranked ninjas had. They always talked in secretive codes even if others were around. He never found that very pleasing, but it seemed nothing beside acceptation could be done here. Thus, he didn't ask further.

Minato was getting a headache for rolling his eyes so much, but decided that one more time couldn't hurt. He'd show the redhead about the future… But not now. Now he wanted Kakashi to learn this… Just in case anything ever happened to him he'd know what Naruto needed to do to turn this thing off. And to start teaching him about seals. Unlike Naruto who had no problems pestering when he wanted something, Kakashi rarely asked for anything, which didn't mean he didn't want to learn. He'd just been squeamish about teaching him seals because of… things.

'Back to topic…' he put a hand on the smaller circle of seals that was placed highest on the redhead's back, almost at the base of the neck. 'This is the main seal. On itself, it has no other powers than sense when the hosts blood gets um… well, from the tail's chakra system, but it's the most important one not just as alarm, but because it's the one that transfers the chakra use from Kazekage's body to the other ones to power them. Without this one nothing else would work, see, this symbol here and here…' at this point the Hokage started pointing at bits of the seal. Compared with the ones that were on the middle of his back and on his hand, it was deceivingly simple, something that was almost laughably fine and delicate, like some sort of etching you would find in some female's jewelry. The fact that the Hokage was pointing at *parts* of it showed that the seal wasn't just an incredibly bizarre new seal, but an amalgam of seals and sigils, with curves and traces that served as much as five different purposes at the same time, and nothing left to waste.

'See, the segulah here forces the connection between the chakra system of the Kazekage and forces the hosts to um, replicate? Resound? Something like it. This part here created the paths in Kazekage-sama's body, which should come down here, here…' he stopped, giving his student a look, then reached and pulled the headband off his eye and onto his forehead. 'I suppose you can see it better than me.'

Kakashi jumped slightly at the motion, but readjusted himself to look at the body of the man. Under the skin of his, chakra paths had underlined visibly showing almost the perfect precision. It was amazing how he could talk about the lines like if he could see them himself, even if he worked with the seals with no help of Uchiha or Hyuuga clan. Kakashi blinked, then moved his eyes around, scanning the system thoroughly. It was more than impressive yet – the new pattern seemed to disrupt the original system and to melt into it, actually not making disfiguration on it, even if he could tell it were the nicks precise as needle points that actually made it work.

He remembered seeing the man using the thing in a fight and he remembered that even if the body seemed to be worn off to the highest points of tiredness, the seals didn't mess up the original flow of the chakra besides sucking out the big amounts of it. So it was truly amazing.

'Wow.' he muttered quietly, unable to contain it in himself. Daichi shifted lightly. He felt like exhibition and even if he was used to showing his body in all his glory to his opponents he rarely had to lie down and serve as a writing board. And that was the difference. Quite embarrassing when the blonde touched him so carelessly around. Taking it to the whole new level of shame. He was proud of his private area and the fact nobody dared to touch it if he didn't tell them they could and now… how disgraceful. But he knew better than to actually speak out about this. Even if the situation was something he didn't expect he knew better than to actually rebel against it just now. If only that white-haired fart would already stop playing on his nerves. Seriously.

The blond smiled embarrassedly at the jounin's impressed look.

'Yeah, well, it's not perfect but… it works. That's all that matters.' The overweight weaver was done under after all. 'The problem is that this sucks up too much chakra. We are lucky Kazekage-sama has enough to spare.' he patted the man's head in an obvious gesture set to annoy him. 'But that can easily be fixed. See, the first time we couldn't because I wasn't sure how the seal needed to be used, but now that Kazekage-sama has figured how to use it…' a pause. 'Dai, you do how to use it from now on, right?'

'I had enough possibilities to learn, Mi-na-to-kun.' hissed Daichi, turning his head toward the blond and crushing him under heaviness of his sharp gaze. What was the man thinking, getting so comfortable with him around the teen like if he was some kind of a domesticated pet 'But I don't see what my head has to do with anything, Minato-kun, so if you could spare it the unnecessary attention, Minato-kun.' he glanced at the teen who seemed to be frozen in the spot. Suspiciously still.

'And it's Daichi.' he added quickly. 'I'd rather stick with official titles or someone might get the wrong impression. Am I right, Hatake?' Kakashi looked at him, then shook his head quickly, showing that if anyone was getting wrong impression it was for sure not him. But he still couldn't stop wondering what had just happened. Daichi squinted his eyes slowly then laid his head back down. Good. The last thing he needed for the kid to think was that they were lovers. Not that he didn't wish for that to be true… but secret was a secret.

The blond blinked in response… What had just happened there? He prided himself in never slipping on something as absurd and being too familiar with the Kazekage in front of others… He wanted to think it was because but was just Kakashi, and the fact he trusted him, but still… The idea of the redhead having forgotten how to use the seal had been too mind-blowing for a moment.

'Aw, Baby#2 knows you were my sempai first and then my, how to day… subordinate later, Daichi-kun.' he said, smiling innocently 'A very troubling subordinate at that.'

Only marginally better than Kushina, truthfully. And Kushina was a natural magnet for deathly situations.

'Back to the seal… now that Kazekage-sama knows how to use it, it's just a matter to finish conjoining the seals. That way he will be using the detouring chakra of the tail to feed the seal, all he'll be using his own charka for is activating the connection. It'll be just… round.'

He wished he could explain it better, but that was the one monumental flaw of Minato. He could understand and apply seals with an ease that was almost visceral in its comprehension of the subject, but when he had to explain such understanding, he could hardly come with anything better than the fact he just knew it would work that way. Kakashi looked back and forth between the men, not really wanting to interrupt their exchange of words. Disturbed, he decided to concentrate on what was the blonde telling to him. Even if the topic didn't want to get off his mind.

'So it will be drifting in full circle now?' he added, wanting to help the man out a little. Daichi rolled his eyes but didn't comment on that. Captain of ANBU, right.

'Nnnot really.' the blond 'It's kind of like cheating. Instead of having Kazekage-sama use his own charka to force the hosts system to replicate, he'll use his chakra to force the seals to use the bijuu's charka to feed the replication in the hosts body, at the same time forcing an asymmetry in the hosts system and the tails.' Minato trailed off again, his expression slightly worried.

'…did that make a little more sense?' It had for Chiyo and Jiraiya, but they were experts and barely needed him to point out what did each of the lines did. It was hard to explain, but the premise was simple enough, just have Daichi spent a lot less of chakra, tire the demon and make the host's body unable to manage the chakra as the beast would want it to, resulting in not enough chakra to accurately manage the sand, rendering the bijuu to maybe 3/10 of his actual force.

Kakashi blinked, then frowned.

'Doesn't that mean that Gaara will be void of his supernatural strength? That probably had to be shocking to him.' Daichi frowned also. Shocking. Yes. Probably. He didn't thought of that yet. Probably wouldn't be handled by the redhead very well. And just as premised, suddenly the high-pitched scream of the said kid rang through the whole house with such emotion that Daichi's first reaction was to actually jump on his seat and close the hands into the usual blocking seal. Not needed now anyway. Just a moment after he let go of it as his body didn't learn to let go of that habit yet.

'Blood! It's my blood! I'm bleeding!' screamed the kid somewhere far away. Daichi sighed. So much for an awkward moment. For a ninja kid to scream so much he was bleeding… he felt shame creeping into him despite the whole situation.

'I'll go silence him up.' he offered, getting up from the table.


	31. Chapter Thirty One: From yesterday

Naruto was staring at the redhead in a panic. They'd been playing hide and seek as they had been told and when he'd been found he'd kind of jumped out of place to try and make it to the starter spot before Gaara could so it would be his searching turn again… but he must have jumped out too suddenly because the redhead startled, tripped on Pakkun and caught his elbow on his desk.

The redhead had started making low whining noises at that and complaining in such a way Naruto had actually started to get worried – because he got hurt a lot worse when he played with Hinata and Neji, and none of them ever complained like that short of someone getting seriously hurt- but when they had peeled Gaara's sleeve far enough to see, he'd been surprised to find he'd barely skimmed the skin of his elbow, more than likely purely on the friction between his clothing and the hard, pointy surface. There was barely any blood on the scrape.

Naruto had opened his mouth to tell his friend that but at the sight of the tiny drop, Gaara had opened his mouth and started to wail like if someone was murdering him. Both Naruto and Pakkun covered their ears at the suddenly extremely high volume.

'Gaara!' the blond complained, trying to say something but being overpowered by the hysterical screams.

'Blood! It's my blood! I'm bleeding!'

Two more futile attempts made the blond close his eyes in a thoughtful expression until he found the easiest solution available. Naruto took a deep breath and did one of the things he did best.

"GAAaaaARA!' he bellowed in a tone that made his father, sitter and super-pervert wince. Yet another thing he had inherited from his mother. At least the demanding tone worked in making the wailing stop dead on its tracks. 'Stop crying like that, it's nothing! Hinata-chan gets hurt much worse the other day when we were training and she didn't cry and she's a girl!'

The redhead looked at him for a moment in silence, but then he broke into quite childish, even for a person his age, crying.

'But it huuurrrtsss!' he wailed, making everyone in the house know about it, including the servants and people outside of it. Also the reproaching tone of his mother who laughed at him and pointed out at him that if he didn't only put her in that cage nothing of such would have happened and for the first time made him question the choice. The physical pain was something completely different than he thought it could be and it stung so, so much!... He hated it!... 'Motheeer! Make it stooop!...'

'There, there.' Naruto patted Gaara's hair like Kakashi sometimes did for him when he felt bad and when that didn't work, he simply put his hand over Gaara's mouth. 'Gaara, stop crying! Ninjas don't cry like that even if it hurts a lot! Hizashi-san said so, and he's Neji's dad and he's a super jounin so he knows.' And Neji had told him his dad had told him so, so it had to be true. 'It can't hurt that much!'

Gaara didn't stop his hiccupping even when he had blocked mouth and showed his scrapped elbow to the blond, nodding through the tears. Yes, it did hurt very, very much and it was different kind of pain he was not used to. And about ninjas… he wasn't a ninja yet, right? His father had never trained him enough to be a ninja, so he could as well cry.

'Iwhuwtz…' he mouthed through the palm and let another pair of tears fall down his face. That was when Daichi had finally showed up. And stopped, dumbfounded. He was not actually expecting the redhead crying like a little toddler. The times where his kids had learned to stay silent were already long gone and he had almost forgot how to treat the case. And besides, doing that to the redhead… he still felt uneasy, and wasn't very used to the situation of Gaara not attacking him anymore. But he didn't have any other plans in the sleeve. So he shot him a freezing glare.

'Gaara, what the hell are you doing?' he hissed through his teeth and walked up to the kid. Gaara hiccupped louder, then showed his elbow despite the fear he felt once again, just like not so long ago. Such kind of thing had to be a reason good enough to make him forgiven.

'It hurts!...' he said, though in much calmer tone as in fear all tears had slowed down a bit. But Daichi didn't even spare a glance at it, only grabbed the redhead by the hands and made him stand up from his sitting position. The kid meeped.

'So what?' he said, leaning over the child to face him but not crouching down to lessen the towering effect 'You're a child of Kazekage and no thing of such should be a problem, especially to kid your age! Stop wailing!'

'But fathe-'

'I said: stop wailing!' said Daichi once again, letting go of the hand he started to squeeze a little too hard 'I'm ashamed of you! How could you put me into such situation? How do you think we look like now? Hokage-sama will think that ninja of the Sand are weak crybabies!' Gaara twitched, then closed his eyes.

Naruto, completely forgetting he had just been saying something rather similar to his friend just a few moments ago, or the fact that only a couple days before that had nearly gotten him killed, grabbed the redhead and pulled him to him.

'Hey, don't be mean to him, you'll only make him feel worse!' It was just like Hinata's dad. When Neji and him helped her she did so much better than when she trained with her father it wasn't funny.

Daichi looked at the blond, noticing his looks once again. Feeling better or worse had nothing to do with it, what the kid could have known? He decided not to argue with someone who was three times younger than him and had temper twice as fierce as him. Or so he assumed, considering who was his mother.

'But I'm not a ninja!...' Gaara almost mewled, breaking through the situation. Daichi snorted.

'You're my son and that's more than enough for the title!' he said and straightened up 'So toughen up or we will never come here again! Understood?'

The redhead looked at him in silence, not really daring to speak up as he slowly proceeded the informations. What the man said was hurting him and it wasn't pleasant, but then it was the first time he had called him his son so openly and that actually made him happy. He was confused of how to react to that. Daichi stared back, awaiting for a response. When it didn't came, he winced. How he was supposed to react to the lack of reaction? Maybe the wound really was bad after all?... He wasn't sure of how the skin of a kid who was never hurt would react to the first contact with hard surface. Gaara's hair were just like at newborns, so if his skin was just as delicate…

He crouched down, reaching out with one of his hands.

'Show me.' he murmured. The redhead eyed him for a moment, then hesitantly gave him the hurt hand. Daichi, without any kindness rolled up the sleeve and looked at the wound. The scrap looked like if it barely existed, only a few droplets of blood showed that it was actually a little deeper than just skin-deep damage. He pushed his thumb against it, making the kid let out a protesting whine, but beside that, not even a fresh droplet of blood came out. The wound was already patched with stilled blood. So much screaming for just this?...

'You must be kidding me.' he muttered and let go of the hand like if it was made of something dirty. The redhead looked at him with pained gaze. Daichi squinted his eyes and held a breath. What was he supposed to do? He didn't want his son to become a hysteric brat over every kunai hit he was going to get. After a moment of staring at each other, he finally reached out his hand again and rolled up the sleeve of his robe that he wore in rush.

'Look.' he said, pointing at particularly deep cut across the skin that had to be actually sewed back in the days 'This is a wound I fought with against the enemy who was twice as strong as me then. I won, so it's my treasure of victory I gained.' he rolled up the sleeve higher. The scar of the little ball point showed up in the tender, pink skin that didn't color up like the rest of his dark skin 'This is the wound I obtained when I fought with enemy who was much weaker than me. I lost so it's my remembrance of what I was supposed to change to not get killed again.'

Finally, he opened his robe and revealed the patch of small scars on his chest. Some were deeper, some lighter and many of them were completely unrelated. He touched the one that was not deep but healed up in ugly mark that could be felt under the fingers as a deformation of the skin. The poison was sucked out a little too late to let the damaged skin fall back into the previous shape.

'And this' he said, pointing at the hideous mark 'is the sign of my own stupidity.'

And dear gods, wasn't Yashamaru so drunk by then the kunai he didn't even want to stop from hitting him would probably pierce right through his heart. He remembered musing late at nights why did Yashamaru had to drink so much, why did he have to weaken his hit and was it really an alcohol? He was sobbing so hysterically by then he would have sworn that he was killing himself. Who knows what he saw by then. The things he shouted were completely out of any logical pattern. Daichi blinked, letting the truth sink in to his own memory.

'I left it because it's the part of my mistakes and all mistakes I made are part of me. Don't cry over the wounds that are already healed, Gaara.' he said, then put a hand over his worn out muscle in his chest 'Care only for those that can't be mended.'

And by how his son looked at him, he knew Gaara understood what he meant. He slowly got up.

'Besides, scars are man's beauty.' he muttered and smiled a little 'So no need of telling the whole world you just got prettier. I'll go back to my room now and I don't want to be called back again, understood?'

The redhead nodded hesitantly. With one last look toward the blond, Daichi left. Gods. Who would have suspected the whole father-son thing could be so difficult? No wonder his father hit him through the face so easily. Kids could be so strange with their innocence.

He was stopped by lips against his own. And hands holding his own in a fierce grip. Not soft or rough, not kissing passionately like the previous night, but nothing close of an innocent peck. It was just that, a simple kiss, stretched for just a few seconds. The hands were less gentle the first moment, just to make sure Daichi wouldn't break his neck in reflex and then dropped, one brushing his cheek lightly. Minato pulled away as easily as he'd initiated the touch and smiled at him.

'Let's go back to work.'

Daichi at first didn't even make the slightest move beside the standard 'punch then ask who did you punch', which was actually more than a habit that he had trained since academy, but before he could even execute it well, he had a mouthful of much more than he expected to have.

Which was very enjoyable. Drastic, but enjoyable. But only when he finally let his eyes fall close and relax into the grip, the blond already left him and started mumbling something about 'getting back to work'. Daichi without a word caught him by the back of his collar and pushed him back against the wall, this time reversing the roles and stealing as much as he liked from the man. Now that was a fair game in ninja rules. Attack and counterattack. Of course, with additional surprise. In a quick move, he angled his head to nibble at the soft part of the blond's earrings. He liked earrings, liked wearing them and liked seeing them on other people. But the all clean and all virginal ears of the Hokage held so much innocence it was almost… perverted.

He snickered into them and then let go of the blond.

'Now we can go back to the work.' he muttered and slowly walked away like if nothing has happened. Which wasn't true, the nick of pleasure was working on him very well. But if that was how Minato wanted to play he had no other choice but to play along. Eveentuually he would be able to set his own rules.

The blond bit back a contented little noise at the action, a noise he was absolutely sure was not a stupid little giggle of delight. Because he didn't giggle. At all. But he did like what Daichi did and he had been glad he hadn't done anything bad to his son, and… well, excuses aside, he had just followed him to kiss him. He had also wanted to make sure he wouldn't do anything too damaging to the kids over something so small, but the older man had actually handled it pretty well. He stayed where he was a moment then followed after the Kazekage…Only to nearly trip on him as Daichi seemed to be stuck in the middle of the stairs. One look below showed what was the current cause of his sudden paralysis.

Jiraiya, soaking wet, with his long mange of white hair trailing water over the floor and dressed in nothing but a precariously tied orange towel and a killing aura that would have made Manda itself turn tail and flee whimpering stood at the foot of them.

'You. Are not. Funny.' The sage hissed, eyes looking positively demonic in their sage mode. 'Don't look at my student, don't touch my student and much less dare to joke about touching my student again or I will murder you in fashions that your own grandmother won't be able to identify your body or what it was done to it after I'm through with you!'

Minato was pretty sure such an open threat against a kage wasn't exactly political. In fact, he might have jumped and said something to make the man apologize, but it was at that point he suddenly remembered Daichi had made a jutsu before lying down at the table. A copy of his mouth to be precise. A mouth he'd sent to follow the sage just to bother him. Which meant…

His mouth stretched into a grin.

….which meant that they were probably the luckiest people alive in the whole work because Jiraiya thought it was the older man just trying to annoy him again! Oh God. He'd always been a successful ninja, but this was beyond stretching the term of 'lucky'! He couldn't help it. He leaned on the wall and started laughing hysterically, the fact his sensei shifted the irate gaze from the redhead to him not helping him control himself at all.

'It's not funny, Minato.'

'It is!' he almost wailed, trying to calm himself and not managing at all. 'It is so very funny!' he sat down, his legs just couldn't hold him anymore. Daichi on the other hand, stood deadly frozen in tracks, looking at the man with widely opened eyes. The last thing he expected after such a mushy quick-smooches was to stand face in face with very angered old man who in close looked like if he was in his early teens and in the mood for some bone-jam. His-bones-jam to be exact.

At first he had forgotten how to breathe as he had completely forgotten about the jutsu he left working near the man. His hand didn't even dare to look for the kunai to protect himself against the angered aura as it seemed that everything was already gone and he was dead for going up against the man's will so openly (not that he would find any, he left his kunai pack in the room where he was laying in anyway). He was actually ready to get a very hard punch in the guts, but then, Jiraiya spoke up.

And that changed the view on much many things he didn't even look at the blond laughing. Because he actually agreed with him. The whole situation was worth a nice joyful cackle of happiness. With the nonchalant move he leaned over the one of the rail of the stairs and smirked lazily.

'Is something wrong, dear old sage-sama?' he asked in a lazy tone, not trying to even hide the usual comments about the age toward the man, like if the danger before him wasn't obvious. He slowly moved his eyes from the head to the toe like if he had just noticed that Jiraiya wore some new expensive kind of clothing's and licked his teeth approvingly 'My, my, what a big old aggressive stance, I'm scared. It's almost like back in the days when old men in Suna watched after me in those lovesick unhealthy stares and made moves on me…'

He stopped, then lolled his head to the side, throwing his eyes to the orange towel and very visibly checking it out.

'Or can it be…?' he muttered in a tone he usually didn't even dare to use around people he disliked. He leaned even more forward 'My, my, sensei, I didn't know you liked me so much, and the way you're showing is actually I appreciate something… very much. Lo-ve-ly.'

And at that, he actually blew him a kiss with a hand, making a phantom shape of mouth from the sand that was left on his hands and at the same time he quickly dispelled the jutsu. The sand fell down to the ground before it hit Jiraiya's cheeks, but only before it was ever-so-close.

'Call me, you know my number.' said Daichi, blinking at the man with flirtatious wink and pushed down past him like if nothing has just passed him. The quicker he was out of range of those hands, the healthier he could stay for the name of the future. So just to be sure, he added as much speed to his casual walk as possible to not make it look awkward.

The day seemed to be full of surprises and it hadn't even ended yet. He had to be prepared to not get heart attack before the end of it. Especially if the man would actually get it that he didn't say a word to deny his opinion but also didn't agree to it. He would doubt he would be able to lie to him as the need to laugh him in the face was sometimes too strong. Childish, true. But too strong. So it was out of question.

Minato quickly threw his hand to his mouth and almost choked on them in an effort not to shriek with laughter. He wanted to tell Daichi not to do that to Jiraiya, his sensei was a good natured man, but his patience was remarkably short, he'd never liked Daichi and he was in a less than agreeable mood. He wanted to tell him all of that but all he managed was another screech of laughter he could barely control. He was probably having an hysteric bout out of sheer relief. The old man, in his place, made a face he were wondering how long could the Redhead survive a torture session if he was very, very, very careful. A week, provably, the short bastard was though enough to handle it, right?

Jiraiya was about to make a lunge for the Kazekage's throat -screw political immunity!- when something caught his towel and tugged at it. The sage emitted a sound befitted to a kicked turkey and dove to secure it in place.

'What the-' his student had somehow managed to get down the stairs and was now clutching at the orange fabric with teared up blue eyes and still emitting that breathless, apparently unstoppable stream of little laughs that were just short of giggles.

'Don't stop me Minato, it's for your own good.' The man said, his expression dead serious. 'I promise I'll make sure no one can trace the murder back to us. We just need an alibi and we'll be fine!'

'I c-c-can't breathe…' The blond wheezed, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his palm. The sage stared. A moment later he drew back his hand and scuffed the Hokage on the head. 'Oooow, senseiiieh ehehe….' The whine dropped off into another bout of laughter, but the pain seemed to do the trick and snap him out of the unstoppable fit. After a couple deep breathes he managed to stop altogether.

'Thanks, sensei…' he said, slowly getting back to his feet, relieved to see that sometime while he gathered his wits the golden, horizontally-slitted eyes and red markings had disappeared into the older man's normal dark eyes and smooth lids. Even if they still looked murderous.'He only does this to upset you, you know… '

'No, he does it to get into your pants. That's what upsets me.'

'I think too much research has damaged your brain sensei.' the blond chuckled, still wiping at his eyes as he made his way back to the work table. He gave his poor, disturbed-looking student a reassuring look and sat back in place.

'Where were we…' Let's see if they could at least get the inner part done before they had dinner

#+#+#+#+#+#

Naruto stared in silence after the man left, his eyes going to his now still sniffling but definitely soothed friend. Hat talk… His eyes scrunched slightly as he frowned. That had been kind of cool. But just a little. He could almost, kind of, sorta see why his daddy thought this man was so cool. Bust just a little. Like a really tiny, teensy bit. With a sigh, he reached to pat the redhead again.

'That's okay Gaara, it'll heal real fast and stop hurting.' he turned around to ask a question but found the room to be empty- with a growl, he stopped to the dresser and started going through the drawers until he found what he wanted. Sticking his hand in, he extracted a utterly terrified small dog by the scruff of his neck. 'You kind of suck at taking care of people.'

The little blond informed the summoned familiar. After a sniff that let him know the room was now void of murderous Kazekage's who might still hold grudges against cute little doggies, the pug directed the kid a perfectly shameless look.

'I'm a tracker ninken, brat, I'm not supposed to be.' Hell, if they wanted security, they should have tied with Bull, Uhei or Akino. Akino would have provably gotten along weight the hyperactive blonde brat well enough, but for some reason he always ended up getting summoned in their place… With a fierce pout, the blonde dropped the dog, the pug landing on its feet as any half-decent ninja dog would do.

'Hey, don't you know some healing jutsu?' The dog stared at the kid back with its deadpan gaze that made him look like a pug-version of its ninja.

'Healing that would be a waste of chakra.'

'Can you do it or not?'

'I just told you I'm a tracker dog, brat.' he sighed 'If you want med-ninken, go ask the hospitals or the Inuzukas.' Reaching with his lower paw, he scratched the back of his ear. 'That doesn't need any healing, just lick it and it'll get better.'

'I've seen you lick yourself and that defiantly wasn't a wound.' the whiskered blond deadpanned, eyes closed on that foxy expression as he rubbed the back of his head. It shouldn't have been possible for the dark, little face to blush. Of course, there was no real explanation for why the blue-clad pug was capable of human speech, so he did it anyway.

'Why you little brat, watch what you say about cute little dogs!'

'You're cute?' said Gaara, interrupting the speech. Then he tilted his head a bit 'I thought you were pretty and not cute.' And with that he had slowly moved his sleeve up to look at the wound again. It was still visible, it didn't go anywhere and the throbbing pain still ebbed in his skin. That was something completely new. But he even liked it now. Should he have done more wounds to himself, he wondered?... If they made you pretty… but why should he be more pretty? He didn't understand that. It was probably just a bonus of that kind that nobody needed but was happy if he got it. He could as well let his body scar on his own. He rolled the sleeve down. Just like that.

'I don't want it healed, I want it scarred.' he said, looking at the dog, then he patted at the wall. 'First. I found Naruto. I won the game.' And with that he turned to the blond with a smile. Then he looked down at the dog. 'Now you're searching.' he said, giving the Pakkun a not very gentle, but not harsh also pat on the head and ran in the depth of the house. He liked hide-and-seek much. He liked any game. He could play nonstop when he finally found the joy of playing with someone else. He didn't know anyone else, but he was pretty sure that Naruto was the best when it came to playing. He just knew it. And with those thoughts he opened some old drawer and hid himself in it. There.

Naruto started snickering at what he told the doggie, but that turned into a wail of horror.

'Oh nooo!' the blond protested 'That's cheating, I didn't even know we were still playing!'

But Gaara had stopped crying and was even smiling now, so he thought he'd let it pass. It would be very mature of him to do so. He'll probably even tell his dad about it later. Better yet, the one who would be searching this time wouldn't be him, so that was even better, but…

'Don't cheat, Pakkun, or I'll tell Kashi on you!' he called, also disappearing down an aisle.

'Cheat? I'm a tracking ninken!' how could use your special ability make you a cheater? He didn't call humans cheaters for using their opposable thumbs and using them to grab things.

In the other room, Daichi had finally relaxed. No water was running through the pipes of the household, so he could as well let his nerves loosen up. He didn't even comment on the fact that Kakashi was at first too eager to make everything work and at the beginning once again had stabbed his back like if he wanted to change his 'meat' into 'minced meat'. Another reason to hate Christmas. But he was too overjoyed to complain, he had got a sweet smooch that still tickled his senses and he managed to walk out of the tete-a-tete with angry Jiraiya in the sage mode – and that meant a lot. Besides, young Hatake could grasp things well and once he finally did, he could tell that with every pierce on his skin the tattoo became more and more skilled.

He could feel the work of the skilled ninja even if he didn't have eyes on the back of his head, like some people. What was worse was actually the fact that once he started painting over him he couldn't even breath louder to not break the paintings that walked even on the walls. He was not told before it was going to be a sucked up seal and he was actually curious about the feeling it would give. He heard that such things usually hurt but left the host with the feeling of new abilities to control the body.

The idea went away after the first sharp tug at the piece of his skin. It didn't much hurt as it just felt unpleasant; formulas suddenly piled up in the small piece of skin making him feel overloaded and like if someone wanted to suck that piece of his body out of him. Thankfully, once it was over, the feeling vanished like if it was never there to begin with. He looked at his back in the mirror for the first time from months (mirrors were a waste of money in his own country for him; it was one of the important exported treasures and who was he to stop the object from getting an outsider's protection?) and appreciated the work of both – Kakashi and Minato and yes, even the white-haired old fart.

It looked pretty stunning to have such a map on the back of his skin. And to think of that his mother was against his need to wear tattoos…

'Looks quite decent for a rookie, Hatake.' he muttered, smiling to himself 'You'd better remember that lesson, because if you didn't I'm not going to give you ability to rewind the process.' Kakashi blushed, though he seemed to be more troubled than happy about compliment.

'Maa… it's nothing big… I'm only learning…' he said. He really didn't know how to handle that man sometimes.

Just as expected, once he caught the basics, Kakashi had figured out the basics very well and it was easy to tell that the teen had appreciable talents with the brush. Maybe he still needed a bit of work on actual skin, but very few seals actually needed to be branded on skin. This seal had been an appropriate difficulty for his student: not difficult enough he wouldn't risk anyone else but himself do it and long enough to test the jounin's patience and attention span.

'That was great, Kakashi-kun.' his teacher said, also admiring the work. Then turned to give his student an appraising smile. 'Consider this test passed. From now on, I'll be teaching you new sealing methods.'

Kakashi's eyes widened and the hand that reached out to cover his sharingan had actually stopped in the middle of the way. Then they both had clamped tight and the jounin looked at the blonde like if he was suffocating. Quite possibly if the sudden recolouring of his cheeks could be any clue.

'Really?' he asked in a bit too excited tone, then he began to shake a little too much for someone who was standing on a steady ground 'I…. I don't know what to say… I'm so happy, sensei!' he shouted and a second later, the blonde had full hands of the teen glomping him like a small overjoyed kid. Daichi rose his eyebrows at the behavior at the strange behavior of the captain of ANBU alone, but decided not to comment on that. If anything, he was the last one to open his mouth here. Minato was never too eager to share with his techniques once he learned their values.

'Oh my… Kakashi-kun…' Laughing a little embarrassedly, Minato looked down at his armful of teen, not having expected such a reaction. It was true that he barely shared any of his techniques with anyone, not even with his teacher, but that's what the key to making his techniques effective, wasn't it? For some reason some ninja fell compelled to rant out their secret techniques step by step down to the smallest detail as if they wanted to brag about them. As if that didn't help any enemy figure out how they were supposed to work! Shrugging lightly to his friend with a smile, he finally gave in.

'Well, you received praising from none other than Kazekage-sama himself, Kakashi-kun.' he said holding the younger man loosely and ruffling his hair with a hand. 'That's not something to take lightly. I had it hard enough to earn my own… Unless you are not interested?' he teased gently.

'Oh no, I'm interested! Very interested!' said Kakashi quickly, then jumped back, finally realizing in what kind of situation he put them both in. It was so hard to forget about who they officially were sometimes. He cleared his throat and bowed down politely, just like an official jounin would 'That… that would be a pleasure, Hokage-sama! I'm in your duty!'

Daichi's eyebrows had finally moved down as he shrugged lightly. He never had the best opinion about Hatake so he couldn't have said that the outburst surprised him, but if Minato wanted to play good daddy to his own army it was not his problem. At least when the real war will come and they will cower in fear he will be able to tell Minato 'I told you so' at least.

'He did a good job, I admit.' he said and covered his backside with robe, hiding the view from the world 'The blood is thicker after all. But don't think I don't judge fairly, you as a Hokage would not get as good mark with your experience.' The kid glared at him again, but he ignored it. He lived too shortly on this world to be a treat to him even if he was a famed prodigy.

'Watch what you say, Daichi-kun.' Minato all but purred, hugging his student close and nuzzling him as affectionately as he possibly could, just to make the redhead grit his teeth a little. 'Someday Kakashi-kun might just replace me as Hokage, and he might remember the less than couth things you are saying about him.' He leaned his chin on top of the grey head, smiling innocently. 'Not likely, considering your age and the fact you have already one foot on the grave, but, you know… just in case.'

Daichi smiled back, though his jaws tightened at the image he saw. Not very nice one. It reminded him too much about his affections of youth and how others behaved toward completely young boys. He turned around, pretending he was fondling with his robe t not actually watch it and that helped him in staying calm.

'Maybe I'm already rotting and breaking under my own age, but I still could take on ten just as young as him.' he muttered, watching the wall with mild interest 'So if he wants to become Hokage he'd better be able to compete with that kind of advanced age.'

Though he doubted that the kid could become Hokage. First – Minato was young and prospering. Second – the Third Hokage was also fresh as orange and could take his duties anytime, just as he was doing now, having fun on the stool with his oversized paternal and grandpaternal instincts. And at last – there were a lot of other people who could take this stool and had much better experience than the brat. Like… the old gramps in council (so what they're old?) or… Jiraiya (even if he was too lazy to do anything with it). And of course, princess Tsunade… excluding the fact she was missing, she was just as good, at least when she left the village (and knowing her, she probably gained some experience during the lost years). And what about Orochimaru?

Currently he was acting negatively, but if he had for once changed his mind, he would do a great Hokage. Maybe he would be able even to do something about that. If he would finally answer his last call properly. But with such a man, you never knew what he would really do and especially – when. It really was a big surprise when he showed himself in his office so suddenly. But then, he was always a man of surprises. But that wasn't even anything sure. But he was just counting the possibilities. Finally, he looked back.

'So he'd better train really hard if he wants to achieve something… but I bet he knows that already without your help or he wouldn't have made it that far.' Not counting the sweetish hug that was starting to annoy him a little more than one bit.

Oblivious to the dangerous thoughts going through his friend's head, the blond just smiled wider.

'Oh, I can't help but hope you are still available when Naruto takes the stool.' he almost added something about that being something Kushina would have loved to see, but somehow caught himself before finishing the sentence. Because so far, he hadn't spoke about her in front of the other, and neither had the redhead. There should have been three of them, and weren't anymore. What an annoying, obsessive thought. '…that would be entertaining. Now… let's go get dinner, shall we? I think sensei should be the one to go get it.'

The curious lack of protests was encouraging, though that might be just the fact the white haired man was out or ear range as he changed.

'Kakashi-kun, would you please accompany him?' after being sitting while he worked for so long, the teen provably needed to stretch his muscles a bit.

'Absolutely not!' Jiraiya irrupted in the room, still fighting with his heavier winter clothing now that the tattooing session had ended and the temperature had been lowered to more normal standards. 'I'm not leaving you alone with that- that…'

'But sensei… I need Kakashi-kun to go with you. Otherwise I'd be afraid you might try to do some hazardous to Kazekage-sama's health.' A pretty smile. 'And then I'd have to do paperwork. And you know how much I hate that.'

'No! No way in hell-'

'It's okay, I understand.' the Hokage said with a resigned sigh.

'I don't ca…!' Silence. 'Y-you do?' How unusual for Minato to agree so easily… Maybe he had finally understood…

'Of course sensei, I know you only care about my well being.' And then Jiraiya had a truly bizarre moment where he fell prey to those terrifying quasi-paternalistic feelings he sometimes had for his student and was so swept up by them that he failed to see that his student's smile was a little too sparkly. 'Take the kids with you then, please.'

'I… what?'

Daichi didn't turn around at that, still busing himself with his robe as he politely ignored Jiraiya's words, but his shoulder's started to shake rhythmically in suspicious manner.

'Oh they would love it, I'm sure.' he said in somewhat suffocated voice, still not turning around. Minato was careful not to look into the redhead's direction, still smiling innocently.

'I need to speak with Kazekage-sama about some private matters and I'd rather do it in peace. If you insist on leaving someone to take care of me as if I were a naughty teenager, I'm willing to comply, but considering you are altogether untrustworthy, I need to make sure someone keeps you in check. You may choose now, sensei, you can take the kids with you, or Kakashi-kun.' Jiraiya gaped at his student for a few seconds, looking at him as if Minato had suddenly speaking in tongues and rolling his head 360º. When he finally spoke again, his voice was soft and kind of flat.

''…I have nightmares where you ask me these kind of things, you know?' The blond only nodded shamelessly.

'Yes.'

The toad sage frowned and narrowed his eyes, glaring dagger at the short bastard who dared try to pretend he wasn't laughing at this situation. Now, Jiraiya had nothing against Naruto in general. He even could almost stand Naruto plus friends but a fundamental truth of the universe was that if one kid was a handful, more than one was an atomic bomb. Especially with Naruto on the lead.

And the other brat wasn't a composed Hyuuga he could trust to at least make up some good, logic points before the blonde tried something lethal, this was the Kazekage's youngest brat, and God knew what he was capable of. If life had taught him a lesson was that the only thing that upsetting a menstruating Tsunade is to leave an insane blond next to a redhead.

'I'll take the oldest brat.'

And he didn't think the man would do anything with the kids in the house… Not because he wouldn't put past him for the short bastard to try to put some moves on his student regardless of if kids were within the house or not, but simply because Nature had deemed fit to make children the perfect cockblocks it had to offer. He was confident that whatever happened, his evil plans would be foiled by his own spawn.

'That's very sensible of you sensei. I'll take whatever Naruto has. Remember he eats five or six portions, if it's ramen.'

Daichi, whose silent cackling had finally slowed down, had adjusted his robe for the last time and turned around to face the white-haired man. Sure, he was still doing everything to cease his good humor, but when the strangely glaring ANBU captain was out of the picture it was all good for himself also. Nothing changed the air for better than the lack of two (or in that case – one, but who knew what he did with it under his headband) eyes observing everything you did… especially when you did have things to hide from world.

'I'll have the meal of the day. And Gaara can order for himself if he had decided. If not, bring him whatever will look healthy enough to not kill a kid who is off his antibiotics.' So far he let Gaara have what he usually had, but still his hair stood at it ends when he saw him eating the piece of bread that fell down on dirty floor. Without Shukaku's protection he had no idea how his immunity worked, but if he was right, it was just as fresh as one of a newborn. Which meant that the redhead should be only on milk, and only the one lactated from feeding mother's breasts – the one he never had occasion to try before. But if he isolated him from their dinner it wouldn't do him any good once again.

And who knew what would happen if his psyche went down again. Nobody guaranteed the golden cage to be as permanent as it was said it was.

'And some milk. Autoclaved.' he added quickly. It never hurt to try to sterilize the food, only if a bit, right?

'Kazekage-sama, I think that's a bit too much.' the blond said with a little smile. 'Chiyo-sama didn't say anything about it.' and he kind of felt she might know a bit more about immunologic systems (and how to break their spine and dance on the remaining bits) a bit better than the other, but didn't really protest. It wasn't long after that the pair left, and Minato made sure talking was safe by taking his time cleaning up what had been left of the materials used, just to make sure the two wouldn't plan to come back up. Kids were just as active if the permanent tapping of small feet and muffled voices were any sort of clue.

'What do you think your council will have to say about this?' he asked once he had finished with everything and he could resume his seat next to the older man, a little closer than before. He traced a finger down the redhead's back playfully as he asked, through it wasn't really a sexual gesture right now. He was truly curious. Not that he didn't think the council would love to know they had a more effective method of dealing with their jinchuuriki, but he doubted the method just washed down a river inside a peach like in a fairytale.

Daichi smiled a bit at the idea of big round table in the negotiating room and twelve people who were supposed to show up there and never really did, because old age usually swept one or two to vacations. Officially it was because they couldn't make it there, but personally he knew it was because they had enough of the meetings. Or rather – him. He always made sure to just push someone over the edge and make him deal with the shame later as he turned the things around. It was worse when he was on the defensive. He didn't lean into the touch but didn't stay much inactive himself. He moved a little bit closer so their shoulders bumped together now.

'They will probably have to say a lot.' he muttered and looked at his nails. Clean, a little broken over using too many jutsu and lack of healing time, but otherwise, clear 'That doesn't mean I have to participate in their blabbering.' Because unlike in Konoha, the Suna council was just a bunch of old gramps under Kazekage's power. Which made them all more rebelling of course. Some power always made people a little soft on the edges.

The blond smiled at the answer slightly. Not really because the idea of his friend being constantly questioned until probably the next century was funny (only it was) but because it had been a while since he'd seen his friend truly happy. The fact he hadn't seen him since Kankuro's birthday hadn't helped much, and it was only now that he realized how much it had shocked him to see Daichi so tense and sullen just a few months ago.

Maybe he'd also done it because it could have been him, attached to a monster just waiting to get loose because of his own mistakes, but he was sincerely glad he'd done this. Maybe it had been suicidal, but he'd also maybe owed this to the other? He was just glad he could see the redhead smile again. He kept stroking the other's back, not really thinking about what he was doing much, other than to make sure it was down the middle and not the upper right, where the fresh bandage covered the new seal.

'Have I recently told you that you are evil?' he smiled lightly. 'Because you are.' Upstairs, there was a little shriek that sounded like Naruto, followed by something heavy falling down and a bout of giggles.

'…just don't get cocky about it, would you, Kazekage-sama?' His fingers trailed down the bumps of the spine, for a moment ignoring the muscles of the shoulders. 'This isn't permanent. Maybe it'll happen again and he'll get a break from it, but I can't assure you of that. And now it knows you are the one with the strings so… I'd watch my back if I were you.' But at least now Daichi wouldn't have to be constantly waiting for the thing to decide to take control and destroy his Village. Now at least he had means to stop it, should the need arise.

'…it should be easier if you stopped it before he was completely possessed, though.' and much easier now that he'd been leeching it's chakra to fuel his own seals.

'I learned from the best.' muttered Daichi in response, shooting the blond a lingering gaze. Minato's income in what he learned in his young years was hard to question at all 'But I'm not the person to brag about my winning prizes… am I?' With that one of his arms had finally crept far enough behind the blond's back and caught him by side, getting him even closer – close enough to push him down on his lap. Which he actually did. It was easy to do when the foreign fingers behaved so nastily against him, teasing with subtlety. He loved the feeling but it was all too kind for the silence they were in. With the sneaky smile he leaned down just to touch the blond's nose with his own.

'So would I do if I were you.' he said playfully, but didn't do anything beside that. If Minato wanted to play subtle, he could do that. And there was nothing more subtle than Eskimo's kiss. 'Don't worry, I watched myself for the great part of my life. I don't think I would forget how to do that only because one unhappy bijuu got closed in the unsteady cage out of sudden.' Though it was nice to know that for once he could go to sleep before the redhead and not expect the town in ruins once he would wake up.

The blond smiled at the gesture, not really fighting it. He'd done enough of aggressive pursue for the time being and now that he was done with his little plan, he felt pleasingly relaxed and indulgent. He smiled lightly and reached up with his hands, burying them in the dark hair and stroking the scalp lightly.

'The whole caging thing was rather satisfactory, though.' he said. Not that he had seen the raccoons expression in its chaotic sandstorm form, but he could imagine it all the same. 'What happened in there?'

The other man smiled then leaned down a bit to touch the skin of the cheekbone with his mouth, far enough to feel it but not enough to actually kiss it.

'A lot happened actually.' he muttered against it and moved further, until he reached the ear of the blond 'I had a race against the monster… and then I met my own death… it was not as entertaining as you might think it was.'

He kissed the rim of the ear lightly.

'I didn't really know who I was and in whom place back then. That was hard when you had to play with someone who could spill himself in millions.' The image of millions Shukakus laughing at his face would probably haunt him until his very end, but at least it was worth it. 'Especially when you couldn't talk because you could eat your own son.'

And that was a strange thing also, understandable only when he was there. In logical world it all just seemed to be taken from nightmare. No logic applied. He closed his eyes and kissed the blond on the cheek, hugging him in his hold more tightly. 'I can't believe Gaara lived alone in all this for the whole time being.'

Minato looked at the other curiously as the redhead nuzzled against him. Apparently Hinata really had been right and this kind of things mattered. He'd thought this was something only reserved for women and small kids, and the truth was that if he had ever had to point to a person who wouldn't want or need affection, that would have been Daichi. Maybe after the council, but still Daichi. Smiling a little amusedly, he combed his fingers through the short hair, nuzzling back lightly. He didn't mind at all. He could say he had missed this too.

'Are you sure you didn't just have an unusually high dose of cacti juice?'

'Next time I'll take you with me and you will see for yourself how entertaining it might be.' Though he hoped for gods and their sand dunes that the next time, if it will ever have to come it won't happen in the next twenty years. He was too nerves-stricken for such things to happen every few days. He closed his eyes, enjoying the pose, even if his back was slowly starting to pick up on protests against the unusual way of bending. 'What did I order for dinner?' he asked. Knowing how up to date was the little blond squirt, his father might as well know what was the daily special at all nearby ramen bars.

'Ramen.' the blond replied ever helpfully, his fingers pressing lightly in the knots at the base of the redhead's neck. To say that Minato was not picky with his food would be really saying too much. As long as it was remotely edible, the blonde would eat it, more often than not without really having an idea of what he was taking to his mouth. Almost as if he enjoyed making his teammates feel sick to their stomach. 'Do you think Gaara-sama will like it?'

'I can't really speak for him.' said Daichi, leaning a little back with half-closed eyes. He liked the feeling of his vulnerable place – the neck – being touched so boldly and the feeling signified a good sign to go a little further with the little snuggling they were doing. Just about time. He was about to lean over and claim the mouth the blonde's lips with his own when in complete silence, the pair of two green eyes popped up and stared at him just from a few centimeters from his right cheek. Gaara.

'What are you doing?' he asked, when he finally let his hands down after pushing the Hokage off his knees and straightened like one of those old Egyptians figures. When he didn't answer, the redhead moved to the blond 'Can I play with you?'

'Depends.' Minato, who didn't seem to be affected at all by having been caught cuddling in his fellow kage's lap simply leaned down and picked the little redhead up sitting him sideways on his lap, as if touching containers for homicidal monsters so casually were an everyday gesture. 'Weren't you playing with my baby just now?'

Gaara looked at the blond with widened eyes. Weren't the man scared of hugging him now at all? People behaved strangely around him since his mother got closed in that weird cage. 'Cuz they are all kiss offs brat' muttered in his head. He didn't really get what it meant.

'I was.' he said truthfully, watching his parent with one eye and leaning into the hug, but only a little, to not look too soft in Daichi's view 'We are playing hide and seek. But since I can't find him anywhere I assume he went to hide somewhere downstairs…'

'Naruto does have a tendency to disappear and be hard to find.' the blonde said with a friendly smile. He didn't get why the redhead just stared at him whenever he touched him, considering he had hardly shied away from it practically since the beginning. 'Want to learn a trick to find him real easy?'

Gaara nodded, curious. There was such a way? Then surely, he wanted to know it. He didn't have idea that it existed.

Leaning down, the blonde whispered something on the redhead's ear.

'Just don't use it too often or he'll smart up fast, okay?'

Gaara looked at him, confused. How was THAT supposed to work? He found it hard to believe it could do them any good, but if the Hokage himself said so… With the little nod he got off the nice warm knees and ran out of the room only to stand near window to be more believable. Not many things could be seen through it anyway…

'The…' he started, then quieted down. He rarely yelled when he didn't have to, so it came out a little hushed. For a moment he meditated in silence, then took a big wheeze into his mouth until he felt his lungs could take no more of air.

'THE RAMEN!' he screamed, making Daichi jump and stare at the room where his youngest had ran out to 'IT'S THERE! IT ARRIVED!'

An orange flash suddenly sped down the stars, screeching to a stop at the hall and staring around intently, waiting for his nose to guide him to the heavenly treats that were the just-made, steaming bowls of Ichiraku goodness. Salted pork, miso ramen, the one with the little pink things with the whiskers and eyes... nothing came to his nose.

'Where? Where is it?' the blond said, looking around excitedly. Minato put a hand over his face and snickered quietly. Gaara looked at him for a moment in silence. So, it worked.

'I dunno. I mistook the snowman for the old gramps.' he said, shrugging, then he moved to run up the stairs 'I found Naruto, if I'll touch the wall first I win again!'

'But why is the ramen gone…?' The blond all but wailed. Loudly. A moment later he gasped and dashed after the redhead, screeching again. 'Gaara, that's CHEATING!'

'But I won!' said the redhead from the upstairs 'And it doesn't matter what you do, what matters is that the mission is completed.' Daichi snorted at that. Yes, that was the main, very non-humanitarian motto of Suna shinobis. Usually that made Suna the most successful village in the whole nation. And with the lowest survival ranks too. It seemed that it was everywhere , even in the mind of someone completely unsocial as his youngest son. 'And it's not my fault it's still not here.'

'That's still cheating!' the blond shrieked in just a high a volume as he tackled his red-haired friend and started looking for ticklish spots on his ribs.

'What are you doing?' shrieked the redhead, completely shocked at the sudden attack, not prepared to be lunged at in the very moment and he pushed at the blonde blindly, not wanting to be harmed as his sand was not jumping at his defense 'No, no, no, no- ahahaha, what are you, hahahaha, stop that, I'll tell fathHAHAHA!... Stop!...' Daichi only stared at the ceiling dumbstruck. So Gaara could laugh like that?... Amazing…

'Your son is crazy.' he muttered, not knowing how to react to that 'He is even infecting mine with that.'

'He's not only my son, remember.' Yeah, that brand of crazy came straight from all the Uzumaki genes that had concentrated on his little blonde, male version of Kushina. Like with most kids, laughter was extremely contagious and Naruto was soon laughing almost as much as the Suna kid, so he decided to take a break once he ran out of breath, straying as he was straddling the redhead's back.

'That's what you get for trying to cheat on the future Hokage!' he declared with a wide smile. Gaara only looked at him with terrified face and backed away quickly.

'Why did you do that?' he asked two tones too loud and in anything but happy voice 'I thought we were friends!' He didn't really expect the blond to attack him and to touch his vulnerable places at all! Sure, nothing got really harmed but it was still an attack and the least suspected at that. That was not nice of Naruto at all. 'Friends don't do that to each other!... I'll tell your father you attacked me!...' Daichi had slowly sweatdropped, looking at the blond and leaning down to prop his chin on his right hand.

'Too bad that I can't say the same about mine. I don't really know who he took all the things from.'

Probably the monster gene or something. Though he doubted that any demon would act so surprised at the attack.

'But yours surely has only your looks from you. Nothing else.'

'For tickling you? You were the one who cheated!' the blond huffed exasperatedly and sat up, crossing his hands in front of his chest. 'Sheesh, you are kind of a crybaby, Gaara, you can run to your father every time something happens.'

Minato gave his friend a kind of amused look. 'Shouldn't the world be relieved by that fact?'

'I'm not a crybaby!' said the redhead, surprised at the choice of the words. Then he frowned defensively 'I'll show you.' And with that, he lunged at the blond, mimicking exactly his moves on the same spots he had touched before. If anything, that thing begged for the counter attack. For the most. Who knows, maybe he would do something more lately. He didn't know what yet. Daichi served the blond a look of 'well what do you know' kind and smiled a little.

'Possibly.' he muttered 'And I can be happy that I got my hands on something one of a kind.'

And with that, he moved swiftly only to push blond on his back and finally, when everyone were gone from the room, steal a kiss from the man's mouth.

'Just continuing where we left.' he muttered and leaned down for more. The kisses weren't very big but they were surely emotion-filled and was all that mattered to Daichi who was never good with words when it came to positive feelings. And sneaking upon the cookie jar when you couldn't eat any sweets from time to time was just too tempting and he was going to use the time to the fullest, until someone might interrupt them again. Not too soon, hopefully. He wouldn't want to explain himself to the two of missing people, like he did back in the days only because of the sensei-student relationship that never really dissipated there.

'You taste good.' he muttered. 'You have a flavor' said Karura once, after kissing him. He didn't understand what she meant then especially as he hadn't eaten anything then. But now he didn't have to wonder anymore 'I might become cannibal for your skin if you won't stop. So don't stop please…'

Naruto, who was just barely less ticklish than the sensitive redhead immediately let out a high pitched squeal of delight and started struggling against the surprisingly strong little redhead.

'Sto-hahahaha!' he tried to push the other off him, but now he was the one being straddled and that certainly difficulties the action. 'GaaaAAAraaa! Ahahahaha!' he tried to reach for the redhead's sides but it was very hard while he tried to keep the other off him at the same time. "Eeeehahaha!'

'Kids, sheesh…' The dog just laid down and stared at the pair rolling around the floor with tired eyes. Some days he just wished he could be one of those happy, fat, lazy deer the Nara's raised.

The blond blinked at the fact all of the sudden he was on his back and staring up at the smirking redhead, and he couldn't help buts mile back and kiss, soft, lightly and almost carefully, in complete contrast to what he'd done the previous night. He leaned lightly up to continue the kiss, lips quirking into a smile at the redhead's voice and his hand reached up and touched the small on his back, that curiously delicate spot that could make the redhead make that delightful little noise…

'You never answered me, you know…'

Daichi murmured something into his mouth as he moved one of his hands, balancing his weight upon the other to move the hand on his neck to the lower part of his body, to not disturb his attention when he wanted to have it focused on the blonde and not himself. He slowly tore his mouth from Minato's.

'Answered? Answered what?...' he asked, a little distracted, then leaned down to kiss the side face of the blond and properly lick the exposed earlobe. 'I answered everything I should have…' In the upstairs, Gaara had finally let go of the blond, pink on the cheeks and quick on his breath as he fought harshly, completely unlike previously when sand did everything for him. He wondered where it went if it only stayed quietly in the gourd in his room?...

'Payback.' he announced finally. Yes.

Minato made a low, laughing noise in the back of his throat and used his other hand to stroke that place again.

'You didn't.' Naruto -just as flushed, out of breath and slightly sweaty as the younger boy- stared up at him with a wide smile still stretched on his face. Then tackled him again, trying to get the upper hand this time.

The redhead squealed, not so surprised this time, but he got caught on the attack and once again he was wrestling for the win. He would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy it. He would. Daichi caught his breath in his throat as the blond went once again for that damned spot on his neck that felt a little too sensitive since it got wounded and not properly healed on the mission (but that saved his life back then indeed) and he moved his hands again to catch it and hold it on the place that was a little lower than the bundle of nerves itself.

'Do remind me then.' he muttered, then looked up from his position at the side of the face of the blonde. Though seriously, even if he knew that there were some questions unanswered he didn't really want to follow the track as he knew he didn't really feel like answering them… especially one he avoided safely. Hopefully until better times. He moved his face closer, breathing into the blond's neck. 'Because I'm sure I did.'

Minato made a soft noise that indicated mirth and moved his hands to indicate he wanted them released, then pushed the redhead off him so he could get back into an upright position.

'Dai…' leaning close, the blond brushed a hand through the saffron-colored hair, then used them to cup the other's face lightly, leaning close. 'Will you stop being an idiot and be mine?'

Upstairs, the kids rolled around noisily.

Daichi's eyes widened lightly at the change of the positions, but he wasn't very surprised by that. Or maybe he would, if it wasn't for the question that made his heart beat accelerate to a bit more wilder levels.

The situation he remembered it from was quite something. Especially for a ninja of his ranks. He would rather forget how low he went with his desperation then. But at the same time, it was worth it, right? He slowly moved one of his hands holding one of Minato's palm's down and moving the other to tighten over the material of the Hokage's nicely done coat. The question was a bit.. strangely phrased, but it wasn't like he could help it. They were both men after all. He was not going to correct the blonde with every word he uttered. Especially when it made him look quite kind with that smile…

He wasn't sure if he liked the smile. He lived long enough around him to learn that not all of his joyful faces were especially optimistic. Instead, he moved his eyes to the lips then to the blue eyes and smiled a bit. 'I'm not letting you go.' He muttered quietly, so quietly that nobody would be able to hear it, even if they were eavesdropping at doors.

'Now when I'm holding you… I'm not letting you go anywhere anymore.'

The blond stiffened at that and suddenly withdrew his hands, not exactly jerking them as if he'd touched something burning, but somewhat harshly nonetheless. He stared at the redhead with an expression that while mostly confused, wasn't very far from being scared. Why… why had the redhead said that? It was almost the same, practically the same… _You are mine now. You are mine and I won't let you go_, she'd said. And Minato -unwanted, broken and desperate- had been happy that she had, and he'd married her.

And now he was just as happy, but he was also left feeling strange because back when she hadn't been there, Daichi had. And when he'd wanted him to say those things he hadn't, and all the other times that he was careful not to remember (because they would make him hate the redhead and he didn't want to hate him, he was too important to hate) he hadn't said them either.

And suddenly he didn't feel too good, he suddenly hated the fact that Daichi hadn't said it before, that Kushina had said it and left anyway, that those two had been utterly unable to share and the only reason he could have one was by relinquishing the other when what he'd really wanted was the both of them- 'Dai.' he said, suddenly blinking and realizing who he was supposed to be, and his body relaxed. He smiled at the redhead, first a little hesitantly, then normally as the disturbing thoughts were firmly pushed to the dark corner of his mind where all things he didn't want to wonder about went. 'Daichi.' a contented purr this time, and he leaned and kissed the redhead on the neck, then reached up and did it on the lips

Daichi's emotions, words and thoughts stopped abruptly at the strange reaction and he all came to a halt. He stared at the blond with confusion, his eyes widening slowly more and more. What had just happened?... Why did he move away so suddenly?... Did he… were his words too accurate. Too truthful?... Did he scare the blond?... Only… only not that!...

'Minato?...' he whispered, questioning as he rose on his elbows, looking at him with fear. He was ready to claw at him and to hold him down with all his weight at the any possible move that might show that he wanted to run away, but instead, he was almost caught off guard as Minato muttered his name and then, just like that, started kissing him up.

Only when the blond reached his lips he dared to blink and let go a bit of a breath that sat imprisoned in his lungs. So he was not running away. He was not. Good. Good. For a moment the ghost of the past over the ideas he counted countlessly, when he admitted his feelings and the blonde fled without words moved over his memory with a haunting flash, resulting with clammy skin and wild beating heart.

'You…' he muttered, breathing quickly to compensate for the wild beat in his chest; his hands moved over the blond to catch him in a tight hug, the grip that was much more stronger than it needed to be, but only now he felt that he actually got a hold on him, that he held the blond in his arms '…don't scare me like that… don't do that… I'll kill you next time, I swear…'

The threats didn't have even the softest edge of what normal threats were supposed to have, but he couldn't help that. He wouldn't know what he would do if the blond would fled from him now. He simply didn't know. Wordlessly, he took the kiss upon his lips and made a few more on the blonde's jaw and cheek. Inside he felt an urge to cry, like a small kid that was for the whole life scared by some closet-monster and had witnessed the longest few seconds of chase by the fear from someone dear that disguised himself for the beast. Thankfully, his well trained ninja skills over holding his emotions made him swallow the feeling down before it could change into an actual need to cry over something so… not really scary in the end.

The blond made a vague noise at being squeezed so tightly it actually almost hurt his ribs, but he didn't try to pull away, just nuzzled the other and kissed him back.

'I'm sorry.' he said softly against the other's skin. He didn't know what he was doing anymore, kissing, touching, nuzzling, kissing with hands, nuzzling with lips, all together, all at the same time. Daichi was the last link he had to his past. He smiled lightly at the threat, his back crawling lightly with small tremors. 'I didn't mean to.' He hadn't… but he still liked it. 'I don't know how else to be… but I do love you.'

Daichi at the words stopped with his tight hold. A moment later he pushed the blonde far enough to look him in the face. What did he just…

'Come again?...' he muttered, gaping at him like if he just saw a pink elephant 'What did you just say?...'

Minato stared at him confusedly for a moment, then gave him an amused smile.

'You thought I didn't?'

Daichi frowned at the sentence. What? No…

'That's not it…' he muttered, then moved one of his hands along the blond's cheek, like if he was examining a porcelain doll or very expensive treasure made of jewels only 'I just never… I always thought… and then…'

How was he supposed to say that he had dreams and thoughts about it many times and that they were never for once anything more than just mirages he didn't dare to touch upon and now… now when it was not a dream, not a thought and not a hallucination, but reality… how… dreamy it was. Much more beautiful than what he ever dreamed out to be.

'…I…' he muttered, then stopped, seeing he was going nowhere '…that's weird to hear it coming from you.' he ended finally, feeling like the foreigner in the country full of strangers and knowing only a few broken words of the local language. In the other words – pretty stupid. '…say that again.'

The blond, still looking faintly amused by what was happening, slowly shook his head, then leaned and pressed a soft kiss against the redhead's lips.

'No.'

Daichi blinked, then frowned more in confusion. The kiss tasted sweet and he had no intension of pushing the blonde away from it, but the answer…

'Why not?...' he muttered, a little disappointed at the turning out of events. Now when he heard that he wanted to be sure he didn't mistake it with anything else and wanted to remember it … mostly because of greed toward what he longed for in the end, but still. Now when he heard it once it became an urge on its own – it seemed that being close to the man had not only made him feel less inclined on the fact his greed for the blonde would ever fuel down, but alas it made his thirst grow even more. At the moments like those, he hated the fate for letting it meet the man.

'Why not?...' he repeated in the more stressed tone, feeling left out. He needed to understand at least that.

The blond kissed him again, just as softly.

'It'll get to your head.' he said plainly, making a small shrugging motion with his shoulders. 'Everyone thinks you have been acting weird lately, but at least we could blame it on the fever. Now, if you go around like you have the past days, your grandmother wouldn't let us meet again. You still want to be Kazekage, don't you?'

_I don't care._ Those were the first words that came to his mind. But when they made way to his mouth he saw that he couldn't really say them as the man in his position. He really was acting like a mindless child that greedied over the chocolate bar. Instead, with just a little unhappy gaze he got up on his elbows only to push the blond to the side, to gather him close and start giving him small, chaste kisses on his own.

'I know my place.' he muttered after fifth or sixth one. He didn't really count as he couldn't really stop himself from enjoying what the blonde had to offer. 'It doesn't matter. I'll make you say it again sometime. In the end, you're not the only one who is in love here.'

Maybe five minutes ago those words would choke him in his mouth, tie his tongue and make him blush like he never did in his life, but now he was far too deep to stress about that. When dreams came true it tended to happen to one.

Minato let himself be kissed, closing his eyes and simply enjoying the touch for what it was without doing anything but wrapping his arms around the redhead's neck and squeezing lightly. Did it really matter so much? He didn't need Daichi to tell him he loved him, he knew it by how he looked at him, read it in each and every little sign… wasn't that the same with the other? Were words that important in the end? Make me say it... He shivered- He'd like that. Yes, he'd like that a lot.

'Let's straighten up.'

Daichi murmured something strangely close to curse in the blond's mouth and he reluctantly, very reluctantly let go of his lips. Not now. He didn't want to let go now. He didn't want to get up, straighten up and get back to being a Kazekage dancing on the edge of the knife. He wanted to lay there and enjoy every freaking moment of just being close together – even If Minato insisted on turning that into something more physical, playing with his neck once again. He whimpered lightly at the feel of it…

Maybe getting up wasn't that bad idea after all. He got up, making the hands fall lower from his neck and looked around, searching for any signs of someone observing them, but not really. He just gave himself a moment to breathe.

'Sometimes I wonder what really is running around that head of yours…' he whispered finally, more to himself than the blond. Then he shot him a glance, not really feeling desire to move. So he moved his hand over the blond strands lightly. 'And I get a feeling that if I ever saw what's there… I would get scared.'

The younger man didn't discuss such an accurate statement. There were few things he considered as terrifying as what lurked hidden inside his head, and most of the time he could barely remember what those consisted of. His hands finally drew away from the older man and then to his clothes, straightening them back up and running a hand through his hair to get it from the actual mess to the more normal mess it was supposed to be. He then got up, looked around to make sure there were no suspicious… anything's lying around. Nothing at plain sight, and neither had done anything that would leave hickeys or any other mark, save kissing, and but hadn't been that hard…

He brushed his suit off just in case some stray red hair had decided to get stuck there, but wasn't too worried for that. He had gotten Gaara after all.

Minato winced at the sound the older man emitted, as usual feeling a vague and by now rather discontent spike of lust. It seemed that Daichi had been designed for making him think about sex when he knew he couldn't have it.

He just gave him a slightly put off look, and as it would be usual in such a person, felt perfectly justified in thinking it was the other's fault even though he'd been the one to initiate this by going to kiss him when he'd been right next to the room with the kids and a one very cleaver pug right next to them and two overprotective sennin and ANBU captain downstairs. No, it wasn't his fault for initiating the touches, it was Daichi's fault for being sexy, and it was decide at that moment he'd make the redhead pay for it later.

His hands finally drew away from the older man and then to his clothes, straightening them back up and running a hand through his hair to get it from the actual mess to the more normal mess it was supposed to be. He then got up, looked around to make sure there were no suspicious….anything's lying around. Nothing at plain sight, and neither had done anything that would leave hickeys or any other mark, save kissing, and it hadn't been that hard… He brushed his suit off just in case some stray red hair had decided to get stuck there, but wasn't too worried for that. He had gotten Gaara all over him through the day. Perfect. Now if he could just stop thinking about Dai making those nice noises...

Daichi observed that quietly, drinking at the sight of simple movements that blond did and whom he could have not observe day by day as he wished he would. He knew it was somewhat crazy and somewhat not normal at all, but he could care less. After what he lived through everything he did was justified for him. Only not the need to touch and to receive something he was denied for so long. The sole idea of that made him shiver lightly. But being who he was, he closed that quickly within himself.

'I think they're coming back.' He murmured, getting one of the red strands from the blonde's shirt that kept to be tucked behind the shoulder, even if he brushed his arms away 'Let's greet them properly, shall we?'

'I'll be contented with you stop needlessly picking up fights with sensei, Dai.' The blond replied with a dirty look that had more to do with what he firmly believed was more of Daichi being needlessly sexy than an actual scolding. 'I'm sure it's very funny for you, but please remember he will stay here after you are gone, and the one to listen to him then is me.'

'It's not my fault.' said Daichi then shrugged lightly, but still didn't turn his gaze away. Gods, the blueness of those eyes was just beautiful. 'He is picking up on me, not otherwise… I think he might not like me. ' With that, he got up from the sitting and moved his clothes lightly so they would lay like they should, which usually meant without a hint of hindrance.

'Of course, I know I'm wrong…' he said, tapping his lips with his finger, then he looked down at the blonde '…as that would never really happen…' he muttered, then smiled at himself. The steps could be now heard rather clearly as the young Hatake entered the hall. He leaned down at the blond breaking the private bubble that no kage should break without having the kunai near his throat '…but you know how paranoiac I am.'

And just when the door opened, he brushed his hand lightly against the blond's cheek, only to move away like if nothing's happened. Kakashi, who opened the door with a happy shout of 'We're back' choked on his own words, not sure if what he saw was what he saw and what to do about it. Quietly, he looked at his Hokage, oblivious to the fact he was blocking the way to his favorite writer.

Minato's response was to smack Daichi in the back of the head as if he were his son's age instead of three years older and turn away to greet his student. With a quiet murmur to ignore him, he kindly moved the still gaping teen away from the door so his sensei could pass by. Jiraiya came up with the bags and looking as amused as him being in the immediate location from Sabaku no Daichi could be, which wasn't much at all. In fact, he kind of made a beeline for the redhead, no doubt with the intention of smashing the steaming content of the boxes onto the Kazekage's head, if he hadn't been tackled down by his overenthusiastic godson. Maybe Naruto really had more a future in politics than what he thought.

'Gaara, Gaara!' Oh, and he'd dragged the MiniSabaku with him. Gaara really was rather small for his age, or maybe just hard to notice without the gourd. 'Try this one, this one, it's got katsuobushi.'

'Naru, wait for me to put the table.'

'But daddy, the ramen is here already!'

'Then be a little more patient. Kakashi…?' he gave the still stuck teenage a pleading look so he'd get the kids cleaned up or something.

'I never had been in worse.' said Daichi smiling back. The things Minato did resembled him of the little kid he once were – it was an act of pure innocence. He was very pleased to see that some things hadn't changed despite all that cut through them and left them separated for years. He moved his arms, making the redhead propped up on his shoulders a little more. Gaara didn't weight much, but in that state he became as oblivious as a bag of stones and he was ready to slide to earth at any second. How strange, considering it was Gaara who was always aware of what was happening around him, unlike others. He cupped the loose head and fixed the position. The brat drooled over his golden coat. So much for respect to the heritage of his three ancestors.

'But don't forget I'm not exactly an angel.' he muttered, not too loud to not wake the kid. Though in that state it seemed that nothing could move Gaara to open his eyes 'So I really enjoyed myself. Thank you for entertainment, next time I'll remember to bring poison with me to show the sage how real poisonous soup looks like.'

He wasn't very serious, but actually, it didn't sound like a bad idea. Just to show. Yes. Council would probably love him for that. Maybe they would even speak to him again.

'It'll probably be worse tomorrow.' the blond said with a grin, eyes sliding over the little figure clinging to the redhead again. He couldn't believe it had worked that well. It seemed… a little too easy. Of course, it seemed easy now that his jaw had been reconstructed by a professional medic nin and Daichi was walking on his own and no one had to account for losses and he hadn't had to sell his (soul) wife, son, country, life for it. 'I'll pass by tomorrow with something else to see if I can make this a little more permanent, but I can't make any promises.'

'Kakashi-kun has a point though, Gaara-sama will have to learn to fight on his own if for some reason you cut off the source.'

Daichi laughed at those words under his nose. Now those were the words of the day.

'I lived through the murderous winds, inhuman heat, lose of dear people and with a monster on the thin leash, do you honestly think that there's anything on this world that could make me cut off the source?' he said, then looked at the sleeping redhead 'I don't think that babying him for a day or two would hurt his brilliant ninja career. Tell Hatake to rather worry about his own condition, his orientation on the desert was surely poor.'

And even if the words weren't the kind ones, Daichi smiled through the whole speech with one eye closed. Some time had passed since he let his face go loose like that, but he didn't remember when he felt so peaceful like that lately. So peaceful in the snowy stormy day.

'Feel free to come anytime.' he muttered, then closed second eye, mimicking the kabuki actor he saw once when Chiyo decided to invite the theatre to the village 'It's your village after all.' And with that, he extended less occupied hand to let it linger for a moment on Minato's shoulder. 'Have a peaceful night… if that's even possible.'

And when he turned around, the hand fell off on its own, leaving the little tingling on his fingertips. That surely was one of the best ways to end an S-ranked mission. Ever.

'My jounin executed finished his mission, which for someone who's never been in Suna and was working with a map you drew, is no small feat.' he said, sticking out his tongue childishly to the older man. Minato just prayed Daichi would try to keep in mind the so called source know that Daichi had it's on/off button literally drawn on his back and didn't decide to fly his back in retaliation the moment the older man let his guard down. As for the babying… well, he was hardly someone in a position to point fingers about it. 'Feel free to come anytime.'

'If sensei lets me, I just might, you know?' given Jiraiya didn't decide to start sleeping with him to further protect his proverbial virtue, he might be able to sneak away. 'Tell Baki I said hi!' he hissed. And, just in case he did, the captain from Suna's ANBU better be ready for it, just to avoid things like… people finding out and political assassinations. Those tiny pesky details that made political life so nice to bear…

In the answer, the other only rose his hand up, blinking the old crafter rings in the pale moonlight. The fingers were already red, which showed how frozen the Kazekage actually was, but he didn't hurry himself. The feeling of lingering happiness was worth a moment of living in the fridge.

'And if he can sleep out here, then I don't see a reason why couldn't I be able to do such a small thing.' But then the wind blew and he hid his hand inside his pocket, cutting the wave two seconds too early. It was freezing. 'Traitor.'

He muttered, frowning, like if the moving air could see him. So much for a Kaze-kage.

Sadly enough, he wasn't able to go that night. While Jiraiya hadn't exactly slept next to him to guard his maidenly flowerhood (flowery maidenhood?) he'd also neither let him sleep while first complaining about Daichi, then complaining about the things Minato had let Daichi do and then the things Daichi would do to him, if he'd so much as given a chance (that list made Kakashi cry and cling to him. He? He found one or two of those ideas actually tempting but where he could find knee-high leather boots that fit him and latex shorts, he had no idea…).

As result, by the time the older man actually left to sleep in his own room Minato was tired and security on the Kazekage's room provably was higher, considering he probably was asleep already. Hoping Daichi wouldn't get miffy about it, he decided to call it a night.


	32. Chapter Thirty Two: Personal Graveyard

By the time he made it to the mansion the next day it was roughly four in the morning.

'Do you even sleep, Chiyo-sama?' he asked the old woman in front of him as he hurried a cup of that really nice dark coffee Sunanians had and mechanically ate whatever the hell they had put on his plate without even asking what he was eating.

Nice of old lady to invite him for breakfast, even though she had pretended to be dead so Minato had shrugged and gone make himself that coffee until she came after him to berate him about being cold hearted to ailing old ladies. He hadn't really meant to come idle, just a quick dash to come to drop what he'd prepared and have her look at it when she woke up, but as she was awake already… Minato had never been one to pass an opportunity to hear about other seal master's opinions.

'So, what do you think?'

The old woman took it slowly between her shaking fingers and looked at it closely. Surprise and doubt mixed on her face like mixture of raw egg yolk. 'It's a childish scribble without much sense.' She said after a moment then gave it back to the blond 'So it will probably work just fine knowing your jutsus. Better try than to wonder what would happen if he never had it.'

He smiled at her words, which were as close as someone related to Daichi could get to a compliment and hurried another sip of coffee.

'Silver?'

'And the dowel.' added the old woman, then reached out for her usual kind of tea. 'When are you planning on putting it on the child?'

'I'm not. Why try when you have Suna expert artisans available?' he frowned at his empty cup, then run a finger over what little froth was left on the rim and licked it clean. '…better make it a necklace.' Unless they wanted to give Gaara another crisis regarding seeing his blood when Daichi decided it was a brilliant idea to pierce his ears. 'Easier to replace.'

'And easier to lose.' said the woman, then looked critically at the piece of paper and shrugged 'But it's you who is deciding here, I can wait for the whole time… in my age you don't hurry anywhere, ho ho ho…' And just to counterpart her words, she made a jump on the floor that could as well belong to a youngster 'Those feet are not as good as they were back in their days.'

'I'm so glad I was born many, many _many _decades before 'back in the day', then.' The younger man said with a happy smile, before picking up his dishes and leaving them on the sink. 'You have a point about the necklace, but I'm sure a genius such as Chiyo-sama can figure out something to solve that issue, I'm afraid I officially burned what was left of my brilliancy.' Or maybe it was just the fact this too early, even for him. 'How is Gaara-sama?'

'Piercing can be good.' said Chiyo, laughing merrily at the comment about Minato's day of birth. If what he said was even slightly right, he would look worse than Matusalem. Then she waved her hand at him. 'He is sleeping just like he has been asleep when they came back from their little ride. I was afraid that his lungs my collapse under his lack of training while being under coma state, but it seems he works just fine. The body obviously never forgot the state of dreaming that it learned during pregnancy. You can see him sleeping behind those doors if you want.' After that she pointed at one of the mostly hidden doors in the hallway, just behind the door's to two siblings of the Kazekage and the room of the man himself. The ninja standing in front of it seemed to be fallen deadly asleep. Minato took a look at the ninja that were sleeping in front of the door.

'Has Daichi-kun suddenly decided to work his men into a come, or are you blame for this faux pass at security?' he asked, pointing at the pair. Maybe he'd have a look at Gaara. He'd always been morbid person. Chiyo had looked at them for a moment, then she smiled.

'I knew I will win 'who stays awake longer' game! Now excuse me, I have to wash the cups, they drank so much off that tea…'

With a chuckle, Minato stepped up and went to look at the little redhead. Gaara was dwarfed by the bed, and looked so cute Minato had to resist the urge to coo. He looked like Daichi would have looked if he had ever been within the realms of cute (not that Daichi couldn't be disgustingly, sappy cute in ways he wouldn't have been able to imagine… just not looks wise, because hawks were hardly the cutest of creatures) and then he started to look around for any signs of crowding sand, or just sand in general. Sentient sand, specifically. Not that he didn't think the ninja or Daichi would notice but, he was truly curious…

Indeed, some of the old sand that hadn't been left on the snowy grounds of the outsides after the critical weather seemed to be gathered at one point, just behind the night lamp. It seemed to need to hold vaguely close to the child who slept just near it, as it almost fell off the edge of the furniture once Gaara moved his head to the other side – almost like if it was on an invisible leash. It still wiggled in the calm atmosphere, but the movement was so weak it couldn't even be called an echo of what it did before. If nobody knew better, one could as well think that near the lamp lied a small bunch of dying maggots who's got glued in the sand and now couldn't even move properly to get out of it. Minato stared at it.

'Hello, fattass~' he cooed at it softly as not to disturb the sleeping child. The sand didn't stop wiggling, though for a moment something close to the eyeball of Shukaku formed and vanished with angry blink. Then it wiggled more furiously, but it was all it did, not even moving from the spot.

'Shhh.' the blond admonished, as if he were scolding a small child. 'You'll wake the baby.' After smiling at the wriggling sand, he adjusted the small child a little so he wouldn't lose circulation on the arm he was sleeping on top of and looked out at the first stages of what looked like a thorough blizzard. If it still seemed too easy, then who was he to complain? Daichi deserved some easy after all he'd been through; and hell, it probably took two thoroughly fucked up people to consider using what probably was one of the most poisonous substances in the world an 'easy' task. And speaking of things Daichi deserved…

It was little effort to get past the guards (though that provably had more to do with Chiyo either drugging or tiring the soul out of the poor jounin) even less to get past Baki, who just gaped in horror at him as he passed by. And then he got into the room and that's when he used every last drop of ninja ability and stealth to get as close to Daichi undetected. It probably helped that this was several degrees below zero and even though Suna could get very cold, it was dry weather and it didn't penetrate like the humid forests here. There was also the fact that the redhead was still provably extremely tired. Either way, Minato wasn't going to question his luck.

Aw. Dai did look cute, all relaxed and defenseless like that. It made him wish he could have found some sort of cuffs or chains that Daichi wouldn't have been able to break like if they were made of play doh so he could put one of sensei's ideas into practice… But yes, very sweet and innocent and thoroughly molestable, and it almost made him feel bad for what he was about to do. Almost. But alas, Minato wasn't –and had never been- that nice a person, so he went through with it. He dumped all of the snow he'd gathered into the Hokage hat and dumped it on the unsuspecting Kazekage's face.

'Good morning Kazekage-sama!' he immediately moved to safer ground. Outside the room, though he was ready to make a beeline for the outside of the building. The wild scream that rang through the building a moment before not only made Baki fall down from his chair but also wonder if now wasn't the time to follow his brain for once and instead be loyal to whatever Kazekage did, stand on the line of attack and protect the Hokage for once. But one look at the door that were assaulted before even the scream had ended made him sure that no, if he was supposed to live through such time, his moment definitely wasn't now.

At least he hoped it wasn't, because three kunais that hit the door had shined through them in the moonlight almost too visibly and considering that Kazekage shot them out in the shock… he didn't want to check how much better his strength was when he knew where he was supposed to shoot. And whom to kill. A moment later the very wet, shocked, and half covered in snow Kazekage opened the said door with a slam and looked in fury at the blond and what was worse, at him too.

'You!...' he said, pointing a finger at the laughing Hokage and marching toward him, not even seeing the sleeping guards on the floor 'What part of it is good to you? I could've had a heart attack! Stop laughing! This is not funny! You are completely mad! That's outrageous! That's-' …and then a snowball landed directly on the Hokage's left ear. '…a good payback. You should check windows before you come in with a bunch of snow to say hello.'

Baki stared. Daichi wouldn't exchange the possibility to see his face right now for the million peaceful mornings, so unlike this one. Minato shrieked like a woman (a girl, really) but that was probably for show, because after shaking the snow off himself like a dog he was still grinning just as happily at the older man.

'Sorry, I couldn't resist.' he was probably lucky Daichi hadn't decided to put some sharp-edged object inside the snowball, too, even so, he'd probably have a bruise there by the end of the day. 'Now I feel bad for waking you up, sorry.'

And yet he didn't look sorry at all. If he was going to be awake at insane hours, everyone might as well share his pain. Daichi smiled back at him, but only for a moment. Then he covered his mouth diplomatically (as the smile just didn't want to get off) and looked at the Hokage with serious expression.

'But really, the thing you did… was outrageous. Completely needless. Imagine what would have happened if I hit you with any of those kunais.' Not that he really would, he was too good for that and Minato was also too quick. But it never hurt to play along the lines a bit, right? Baki surely was getting caught in the action.

'That's… that's right, Hokage-sama!...' he added bravely, even if he wasn't sure if he could speak at all 'That was very unnecessary!...'

'I would have whined to Chiyo-sama until she fixed it for me, then make you go torture my council until they cried to make it up for me.' the blond replied without missing a bit, still looking rather content with himself. 'Or more than likely just find someone to impersonate me and use that to take over Konoha from the shadows. Then die a horrible death by being chewed to death by angry frogs.' And considering they didn't have teeth, that would have been awful.

'Either way, I'm sorry, I was just passing by to say good morning to you, I actually have to go to work,' the blonde made an apologetic praying gesture with his hands. 'I left some things for Chiyo-sama to look over, and you might want to have a look at them.'

'I'll be sure to toss a glance or two at those.' answered the saffron haired man as he finally took his hand out of his lips. He still bit lightly at his lower lip to stop himself from incoherent laughter. 'Thank you for passing by, Hokage-sama, good morning to you also. But now, if you don't mind, I would gladly get back to my bed. I don't see why should I suffer from the cold just as you do when I really don't have to.' And with that, he turned on his feet and moved back toward his opened room. 'Baki, be good and escort Hokage-sama to the door.' he muttered just before closing the door. The man nodded curtly and looked back at the blonde. He looked a bit torn between feelings that seemed to overtake him – which meant loyalty and the confusion. But quickly, the first won.

'At your order.' he said and bowed lightly.

'No need to, I'll see you later, then?' without waiting for an answer, Minato made a small not-quite bow and quickly moved to the door, not looking back. Nice way to start the day, now if the stupid storm would just clear enough for him to be able to tell what was three feet in front of him… Well, at least that meant another day of stay for the Sunanians.

Unfortunately for Daichi, he didn't have eyes on the back of his head (as some suspected) so he couldn't see that smile, but the performance was more than enough to make him happy. He missed out on all time to have mindless playing as a kid and Minato was the only gap in-between harsh training and… well, more training. Him and Kushina. So it was reminescencing him about good old days. He smiled sadly, brushing the wet sheets of his bed. After being treated in such way his bed didn't feel so comfortable to sleep in anymore. Yes. Good old days.

'Maybe it's time to say hello to the mistress of the house.' he said out loud, like if anyone could hear him. Only the howling of the wind answered, which was more than comfortable. It was dark, cold and lonely, so if he would have to deal with the images of his brain he would be more easy to break. His psyche usually got more messed up when he was outside the family side of the world. He kept on brushing the sheets for another silent moment, then he slowly stopped. The wind spoke for itself.

'Yes, I probably should.' he said, suddenly looking like if he's got ten years older in few seconds. Then he slowly proceeded toward the desk and started writing the letter to Suna. Later, when the snowstorm will subdue, he will do that. And in meanwhile, he could take care of his weak council and write down a short FAQ for them while his absence was elongating. Like – don't touch anything in my office. Especially don't sit on my chair. I will know and I will kill you. Millions of you want to take place of every one of you because generally, youngsters never know what they're getting into before they actually do get in those troubles. Well, maybe not all of them. And maybe not that many. Finding good councilors in Suna usually took half a year.

But somehow, he forgot to add this little detail. At eight a.m. a big brown hawk squeaked through the snowy grounds and flied away with silent flaps of the wings. Daichi looked after him with something akin to tenderness in his gaze. Good old Chairou didn't seem to be very happy about his wish but still let him pet his beak a little. After jabbing him on finger twice.

'I'm getting old.' he murmured, watching the grounds. Last time Chairou bit him was… wasn't it ten years ago? Ridiculous. With a curt click of a tongue he closed the windows to Narnia. The snow had stopped falling. He could as well start preparing for his visit. His doors closed at the same moment when the doors to the main house had closed.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Hurry up, Naruto!' said Kakashi, checking out his mask. Winter clothes made it harder to talk through them 'It's cold today, there's no need to make it long.' Because really, visiting graveyard was an activity that could take hours, but not on a day like this. He knew it could wait because dead people didn't tend to wander off anywhere, but after not seeing Obito's grave for so long, he felt like if something was missing within him. He owed him at least that much. And Rin too, at least. 'Come on, Naru, don't you want to tell mommy what's had happened lately? I bet she will be eager to listen.'

Naruto said something, but as to what words exactly those could be, it would be hard to tell around the mouthful of instant ramen that was on his mouth. It was cold outside, so why did Kashi keep hurrying them up? How was he supposed to survive the temperature that never really affected him too badly without a fifth bowl?

'Fiiine.' he pushed the bowl away, closing his eyes in a foxy squint and pushing and pointing at the teen with a finger. 'But you'll buy me a bowl at Ichiraku's on the way back because of this, all right?'

Kakashi smiled a little at this. That was so like Naruto.

'Of course.' he said, then kicked a little patch of snow 'I wanted to stop by Ichiraku's anyway, I wanted to buy hot nikumans anyway. So, are you done?'

Before he so much as finished the sentence there was a little blonde clad in bright orange parka clinging to his back like a baby koala.

'I love you Kashi~!'

Normally, Naruto didn't like getting up before eight in the morning, but when they had to go visit Kashi's teammates and kaa-chan, those were the only days that he didn't complain or try to cling to the blankets too badly. For one thing, it was important for Kashi and daddy didn't like it when he went alone (and he was right, because when he went alone Kashi came back really, reaaally late) and for another he kind of had to make up for the fact daddy never really came to tell her anything.

Daddt always said it was because his mommy was always with him so she already knew what he was doing, but if she was with daddy and with him, then she couldn't possibly be in both places at the same time right? Neji seemed to think it was possible because once you went to heaven you got something that was kind of like a byakugan and a sharingan all put together to keep track of what the people you love, but that sounded like it consumed a lot of chakra to him. Hinata thought that her mommy took care of her and her daddy, but especially her sister because she was smallest, so she thought his mommy was provably more with him than with his daddy, like, because he needed more taking care of.

That made a bit more sense to him, but he thought his tou-chan needed it more. After all, he could already tell what side of the shirt went front without checking if it had a picture there to guide him.

Either way, even if his mommy *did* know, he was sure she would appreciate it if he went and told her, because the things he told her couldn't possibly be the same she saw because he was seeing them from another place, so maybe they saw different things and he could fill her on them.

'Haha, yeah.' Said Kakashi, smiling at the blond ball of fuzzy, clinging to his legs and patted his head – no too much, to not make the head piece fall 'Come on then, we will visit it first and then we will get to the cemetery. It will be better to eat something warm on such cold weather.'

'It's all right, I can wait.' the blond said, giving the taller male's neck an affectionate squeeze, then sliding down his back until he hit the floor.

'Oh? You can really?' he said, looking at Naruto with a bit surprised glance. He was not believing him of course, the blond was not a very patient kid and especially not when it came to ramen. But he was not going to make it easier for him – Naruto said what he said and now he will have to keep up to it. Still, it was quite a fine thing for him to say 'Then, if that's how it is, let's get going.'

And with that, he caught the blond's hand and started marching toward the graveyard. Almost like with son he never had (and never intended to have, he was too young to think about it after all). Naruto smiled and squeezed the hand back, eyes closing in the same fox-like expression. He knew Kashi wants antsy about going, so he was going to be nice and go with him now. And besides, if they took a bit more, he'd be hungrier when they got to Ichiraku's, and then he'd be able to eat more. It sounded like a good plan. He was sure mommy would approve.

Creeek. The metallic door squeaked in silence, old, overused, too heavy for their own weight. Sabaku no Daichi looked at them, startled. He didn't expect for such a thing to make any sound – especially not since in Suna all graveyards had the quiet wooden doors – but the feeling was gone as fast as it came. What he regretted more was touching the thing – the stinging pain of cold metal was much more awful than the sound it made. He slowly moved inside.

Quiet and freezing. That's how he would call the atmosphere of this place. Quiet and freezing. And sleeping. So unlike the peaceful death of the place, every piece of the snow-covered ground seemed to be very much alive. The covered and clean tombs made the feeling even more obvious.

'Are you mocking me?...' he said more to the air than to himself. He felt the need to test his voice in this empty place and he felt uneasy when it came back deafened and little. Some of the fault lied in the scarf he covered his face with and surely thick air of the perfumed candles had to add to already stinging air but… in some way it felt dangerous.

How was he supposed to recognize the grave of that witch after such a storm that happened the last night? He never saw where she lied and he didn't ask anyone as he didn't want anyone to know where he was heading to. He wanted to ask someone at the graveyard. Unfortunately, there was no one at this place at such hour. Except those two on the left. The older teen seemed to be hypnotized as he watched some stone on the hill and the little kid seemed to be drowned in babbling to itself. Its voice could be heard loud and clear in such atmosphere without any obstacles. And before he even made two steps toward the pair…

'…and then I told him he was a bad father and made Kazekage-sama cry…'

'Well, not really crying- but I could tell he wanted to…! He-'

…he already knew who it was. Naruto and his babysitter. Great. So he knew where her grave was now. And apparently, it seemed that Kushina already had her share from the story and knew he was there. He was sure that if a dead person would talk she would be more than happy to search such a thing. Not exactly a situation to dance on someone's grave in the end. He wanted to get away quietly, but as he moved backwards, the snow crunched under his feet far too loud for his likings. A moment later, the red eye of the White Fang had flashed and caught him in his range.

'Oh, good morning, Kazekage-sama. What a coincidence.' he frowned than cursed under his breath. But, as they say – show must go on.

'Indeed.' he muttered and started moving forward. 'I'm surprised to see you here. Could that be that we came to see the same person?' he murmured. Kakashi didn't give him more than a dull disinterested glance.

'If we're talking about Kushina Namikaze, then yes, we did, Kazekage-sama.' he muttered, observing him. Daichi had finally stopped and looked at the grave that seemed to be freshly uncovered, then looked at the blond boy. As his privilege, he didn't have to speak first if his companion was younger than him. But that didn't mean that he couldn't do it if he wanted to.

'You came to visit your mother.' he spoke 'That's a good thing for a son to do.'

Which reminded him he didn't visit the grave of his own parents for last seven years… not that it mattered, the boxes were as empty as the air above the cemetery.

Naruto wasn't yet experienced or even trained enough to be able to detect soft noises like the small crunch of the snow in the dampening effect of the uninterrupted snowflakes; not without strong ill intention to warn him and much less over his own comparatively loud talking. He turned around to stare at the approaching man, but didn't make any sort of effort to get up, though this actually had more to do with lack of knowledge of etiquette than actually wanting to be rude and not greet the man properly. He was just surprised to see him around here so early in the morning. That people in Suna woke up much earlier than any of them so they could work without the stifling heat never occurred to him.

He didn't have any particular interest on making conversation, and he still had a lot to go through so he would have been perfectly content to ignore the man as openly as he usually was ignored by him if it hadn't been because the redhead chose that moment to actually talk to him directly. And not just that. It actually sounded like an honest sort of compliment.

Naruto wasn't sued to being complimented by someone that wasn't in his immediate circle of safe-people, much less someone that openly disliked him (and that he didn't like any better). He spent a moment or two thinking if that hadn't been some sort of hidden insult, but a she really couldn't find anything bad about what he had said, he just nodded lightly, pushing back the hood of his parka and rubbing his neck in a gesture so like his father he might as well have copied it. "Um, yeah….' he thought of thanking the man, but the words didn't really seem to be what the other wanted or really fit in the sentence, so he just pointed at the white-haired nin.

'Kashi brings me every week.'

'Every week, huh…' said Daichi, looking at the grey-haired nin. But the older boy seemed to be lost in his own private world as his eyes once again dances upon the graves on the hill, not noticing that he earned his attention. Kazekage slowly moved his head and looked at the blond again. 'Why do you come here every week? This sounds like unnecessary activity.'

He never heard of people visiting someone's grave more than once a month, unless they were attached to the lost person too badly. Naruto was too young to be taken to cemetery so often. The blond didn't seem to think anything weird about such things.

'If I don't Kashi comes alone. Daddy say it'll make him sick.' he shrugged a little and patted some of the accumulated stone off the tombstone. He was too young to remember or understand that when Minato had called what Kakashi did 'unhealthy' he hadn't meant for it to be a physical illness. He also didn't remember that that when he had been less than a year old Kakashi hadn't been living all the time with them and was always coming late everywhere, but that had only been until the second assassination attempt made clear that the list of people one could trust Naruto's safety with was very limited. 'Besides, daddy never comes, so it's good I come more often.'

'He never comes, I see.' For a moment, something akin to the victory flashed through his mind, but it was as brief as shallow it was. The feeling quickly melted into the empty sadness, the one some tried to drink off in the bars at the late hour at night. 'Look what it came from your death, stupid witch.' He muttered under his breath, then slowly crouched down, touching the frozen ground with his fingers. The feeling of greasy, steady mud was unnerving, but so much closer to the feeling of sand than just the thin air. 'Was it really worth dying for like that if it came to this? Tell me.'

He didn't expect the grave to respond, the questions were futile. In a moment of silence he moved his fingers over the grouchy mud, catching bits of earth and letting it fall down on the grave back again. Then he turned back to the boy with closed expression. At this position boy could stare him eye into eye at this age. Maybe calling his mother 'stupid' and 'witch' in front of him was not wise, but that's how he called her for most of the time and such things were first for him on that matter.

'I didn't like your mother. Does that surprise you?' he muttered in calm manner, not expecting the boy to get it, not sure if saying such things was right at such age. He licked his lips from the fog that happened inside his scarf and looked over the blond's face. 'You have her smile.'

Naruto was gaping at him, all pink cheeks and wide, cerulean eyes that might as well have belonged to his mother. He was pretty sure no one's was supposed to talk about one's mother like that, much less the Hokage's wife (even Kakashi caller his mommy per '-sama'), except… daddy did that too. It had just been once or twice, but he had called him that really bad word that started with a B. The one Ero-sennin told him he was too young to understand but to never call a girl that either way, no matter how bad she misbehaved.

He took a step back.

'Why are you mad at her too?' he asked, his voice quivering oddly though he didn't know why, because he was too confused to feel either anger or fear. 'She just wanted to help. She didn't do it on purpose.'

Daichi on the other hand, didn't move an inch, not even a muscle on his face. He saw the distress of a kid, but he didn't want to ease it down. Graveyards were not playgrounds and if the kid didn't know that then… too bad for him, life was not fair.

'Mad at her? Possibly. A bit.' he muttered, squinting his eyes as the chilly breeze moved around in a second or two 'She only wanted to help, but hell is paved with good intentions. I always told her to think twice before doing anything…'

He blinked and licked his lips in a thought. Within all missions he had to share with that coconut head at least half of them were filled with such hot blooded actions. It was not an irony she died like this – it was more like a sad, but predestined outcome of how such people ended sooner or later. Sad, but true.

'I am mad at her, because all I ever wanted from her was to take care of your father.' he muttered again, twisting his eyes toward the tomb again. It was true, beyond all jealousy and defeat, after finally admitting that he lost, he wanted for Minato to have what he wanted. To be happy. And look what's happened. 'And she ended up making him sadder than he deserved to feel. Do you think I have no rights to feel that way?'

'You are lying.' Tiny fist clutched for a moment, then let loose and Naruto took another step back. He didn't look like daddy did when he called her bad things. He didn't look like Kashi when he had a fight with Asuma. He looked like… without a word he gave the grave another look, then trotted after the jounin, sitting on a side so he wouldn't really interrupt but still close enough the Kazekage wouldn't come near and risk having other's eavesdropping.

Daichi looked after the blond in silence, as the chilly breeze once again blew against his unprotected eyes. He could swear he felt his almost nonexistent eyelashes getting covered in frost. That was indeed a… weird move from a little kid. But then, what could he expect? Kids usually tended to deny what they didn't want to hear by simply accusing someone of lying. Who was he to expect from such a little child to act otherwise? In the end he was not at fault here. He was honest with himself. And some things really were not for this kid's ears.

'You think I should have told him? You think I should?' he muttered, knowing very well that no, no he shouldn't. Such thing was supposed to go through the father and son only if ever. He had no rights to destroy the innocence of Naruto until the brat would be able to swallow it himself. He turned toward the grave. 'You know… it's the truth. I'm really, really angry at you.' he muttered, and just to pinpoint his words, he once again dug his fingers in the cold mud, clenching them and feeling the ice and earth moving around his digits 'And so disappointed. I gave up on him. I gave up all my happiness for you to have a chance to make him happy and you screwed up majorly. Are you happy for yourself?'

He stopped. The faint figurine of Kushina stood beside him, he clothes light, unfolded, like all summer clothes of academy girls. Those were not her only ones, those were not her most beautiful ones, and those were not her most used ones, but that's how he remembered her. In vivid orange that seemed to be inherited to her son, like a second skin.

'I hope you are… though you really don't have a thing to be proud about. I suffered…' he muttered, then stopped, his fingers loosened a bit 'I suffered, but it doesn't matter, I knew what I was doing. But he had also suffered. And that's not something I can easily forgive you. You hear me, you stupid witch?...'

The figure didn't move, shining, hollow. It seemed almost like a brainless ghost, a zombie whose body crumbled and only sheer will to stand made her be visible. She wasn't there and he knew it, but still, she looked at him and he saw her seeing him and that was only thing that mattered.

'Kushina…' he started, but then the figurine moved and suddenly nothing really was there. He smiled to himself bitterly. Nuts. That's how some people called someone like him. 'What am I doing, talking to the grave…' he whispered with irony. He stood up from cold grounds 'I should dance on it instead. I promised you that, remember? I said that this Black Jack mission was mine, you said that would happen only over your dead body and I promised you to tap dance on your grave. And I really, really wanted that mission, you know?...'

He looked at the cold, a bit damaged earth on the ground and touched it with the tip of his shoe. A perfect dance floor. But he didn't really feel like dancing. At all.

'I really wanted it…' he muttered again, hearing how his voice quieted into a crispy tone. Now he wasn't really talking about that mission anymore. It was over, right? And not that well paid in the end. It was just that… well, she's got it, right? The things he never had. A lover, a child, a big pretty house and a love one could only dream about… and he was jealous for it, oh so jealous he was, yes! Because really, even if he owned even better house it was always empty and full of bickering, nobody really was happy and everyone seemed to be drained by heat that drained everything in that frying pan of his lands…

so yes, he was jealous, he had rights to be jealous. Of everything. But even if he was, deep inside he felt that stupid little emotion that was happiness. He was happy for Minato being happy, he was happy for villagers being happy and he was happy for her being happy. Yes. Because hell, she was just like an ugly duckling and even if she was the most annoying, most awful and most unreasonable hot blooded witch on the whole world she also had a good heart and deserved it, like hell, she deserved all that shit and he believed she did because he freaking loved her, like a man can love a woman with all this platonic brotherly-sisterly feelings for all siblings he never had and now where was she… dead, in some tomb, being eaten by worms, and not having any of this. Fuck.

It was not a good idea to come here after all. He moved his hand over his face, noticing only after that he actually touched it with the dirtied fingers and now he had mud all smeared over his eyes. So ninja-like. He blinked again. She was there. Again.

'Such a victory… doesn't make me happy at all.' he said to the empty face.

She looked guilty, just like she had back then, when she read the understanding in his eyes. Just like then, the anger covered the guilt.

'You should have told him anyway!' and if she had been alive, if she hadn't been just a figment of memory instead of an actual apparition she would have told him, like she never could quite dare to tell him before, that he did have a chance and all of it was on him telling Minato, because the blond was skittish and wouldn't trust him, wouldn't dare to so much as give him a chance unless he took not only the first step but made a mile run to it.

Because even then she had loved him the same way he loved her, because even then she had known, she had sensed, she had felt his chances, as good as his, had known she won just because he decided to drop out of the race and her pride wouldn't have stood for it, she had wanted a clean victory, but not enough to tell him the whole truth. But those were things done and buried, things that Daichi would never known or understood.

For some reason, this time she wasn't mocking and she wasn't poetical, she was much more like herself than she ever was. Maybe because this time he isn't sick and stressed or maybe because she is dead and he practically stood on the proof of it.

'You are not fair, Dai.' and it's the first time it sounds real too, because she always used the nickname when she learnt it would make him cringe, learnt to use him to annoy him and eventually lost bite and just stuck. 'You could have told him too.'

'No.' he muttered in ghastly tone. He felt something breaking inside him. Not those words. Only not hose stupid few words. He didn't want to hear them. He never wanted to hear them. Because hearing them would mean that he knew this, and that meant he had to acknowledge this and that meant… that meant… 'No, I couldn't!' he added in more high pitched tone, even more quieter than his previous one. She looked at him like that and he felt trapped, trapped like a mouse that ran for forty years only to discover that the fear she was running away from never really lost the track of it and it was just as close behind as it was before, or maybe even closer.

'How could I? I couldn't! Don't you remember!...'

Because he remembered. He remembered very well. And it was so dangerously similar to how he felt now. So painfully identical. He wasn't old then, no, he was still young and at the peak of his career, his wife was bearing him good kids and he had almost forgotten about everything, working over the project of his life – the project that was supposed to make him the most powerful Kazekage and Suna the most feared village in the five countries. So, everything was peachy. Peachy, dreamy, good and covered with baklava. And then he has got the letter.

From no one else, but Minato nonetheless. Invitation for a wedding. And that's where his perfect image got a first crevice. He went there, of course he went – how couldn't he? He was Minato's best friend! He was supposed to bring presents and good wishes and of course, alcohol, lots and lots of it. Thankfully, he was not supposed to bring rings, or something bad would happen to him… and at such stance, he knew he could survive it.

Only, he was wrong. Because when he entered the hall, all covered in this elegant suit for celebrities holding that expensive green almond brainfreezer and saw Minato being just peachy, dreamy, good and covered in honey and her standing near him in that snowy, delicious dress which made her hair stand out like real flame, he just felt that his peachy, dreamy and all so well life was a lie and that his baklava was a cyanide in disguise. But as a good actor he was, he played along. He congratulated them, he laughed with them, he clapped with everyone and he even cheered for a kiss of the pair, not really believing it would happen but it happened anyway.

And like if that wasn't enough, she had to spot him, spot him when he was alone and banging his head on the wall, only to tell him… wait, what did she do?...

'I told you to tell him.' her hands went to her flat stomach and cradled it like if she had something precious she didn't trust him to be near to without endangering it. Which is how he had known. 'I always did and you never did it.'

That's what he said. And he remembered having many, many answers to those words and even much more reactions, but not to this. This. This lovely gesture she did that only a woman could do. He knew it very well, because he had already seen it before at his wife's routine and he was a ninja – he didn't forget. So, when he opened his mouth, instead of words, of curses and maybe even tears, only the air came out. And when it came back in, he smiled at her, smiled like if he was the one who owned all and like if it was his own child and he was proud father and came to her and congratulated her, only to hide away from her for the rest of the wedding. He didn't remember very much after that. Mostly due to shock, probably some alcohol too. He only knew he went out without saying goodbye.

And that was the last time he saw her. Before now, that was. He lowered his head.

'What good would it do? There are important things and more important things.' he stared at the ground. It was white. It hurt to look at it. 'I couldn't do that. Not then. Not like that.'

He rose his head. Nothing but a sadness emitted from him now. Mud traces over his face made it look only more grotesque.

'I told him. You know? Told him.' he muttered suddenly. This was not what she implied, not what she wanted, not what she meant. It was years too late and absolutely out of place. 'I acted like the worst woman I would never want to meet. And I told him.' His hear skipped a beat, filling him with the uneven sweetness, so moist and warm at the memory of embrace, so alien and yet so right. And then his heart clenched painfully, skipping another beat, a sting of guilty pushing at his brain. He felt like a burglar, like a thief who stole what was supposed to belong to someone else – he was still not used to the fact of that when always denied – he was finally given.

And he felt like the worst scum, looking in the face of someone whom he stolen from. He didn't know what he wanted to get from her after saying that. Not a blessing, not an absolution. He just…

'I just want you to know that I'm taking him now.' he muttered toward the transparent face, seeing more or less only a hallucination. 'Okay? I will take care of him now…' It was not a sure statement, more like a plea – please, forgive me for taking him. I'm sorry that you died. I wish you are happy.

'…I will take care of his happiness now.' he said again, this time with more steady, assured voice. 'So please, rest in peace. I'll take care of both of them. Just to make sure they'll live to their fullest until they'll be back to you.'

He glanced at the little blond. The squirt surely was not something planned but he knew he couldn't even him out. He didn't want to. This was also part of Minato, of her too. He didn't know how as the kid obviously didn't like him… and vice versa, really. But he will. Somehow. That was all he could do for her now.

His answer was something small and warm wrapping itself around his hand and tugging. The same clear eyes that never could get the hiding of emotions right, showing discontent and apprehension, and that same stubborn decisiveness.

'…can I go play with Gaara later on?'

For a moment, silence ensued. And then, just like a broken dam, the numb emotions pressed against his heart and his brain and expanded in quick, rapid spreads. He opened his mouth, but his voice died, blocked by everything, hidden under all the chaos that tugged on the ends of his nerves. So, instead of talking, he just nodded, with one nod, steadily. He smiled too, but he doubted that the kid could have seen it since half of his face was hidden behind the scarf. He could only hope it had hidden the fresh streams of waters that just couldn't stop flowing now, freezing on this cold and unhealthy breeze.

This could have meant nothing, completely nothing at all, and maybe his brain was just twisted after so many years of being under pressure of codes and passwords, but if he did… he's got his answer. In silence, he squeezed the small palm for a moment and turned his head toward the grave. No one was there, but so what? The most important things could not be seen by a normal eye.

'Of course.' he rasped. Kakashi turned around startled. He could have sworn that the Kazekage wore a mascara and somehow managed to get his face into the can full of water since it was now all runny. Because such a man would never cry at someone's grave. As a teenager, Kakashi knew better than to listen to such childish clues given to him by his childish part of his brain.

'Um… ah...' For the second time in that single day the blond stared at the older man with wide eyes. His first impulse was to draw his hand back when he squeezed it, but he wasn't hurting him and he looked… sad. Sort of scared. For some reason drawing the hand back seemed like something mean to do, and even if he didn't owe anything to this man, even if he didn't even really like him, he decided to leave the hand where it was.

He didn't know what to do and didn't know better as to look away. He knew men Kazekage's age shouldn't cry, but someone that did it as easily as he himself did didn't have much room to complain right? Acknowledging it was out of the question, so instead he said the only thing that seemed correct in such a situation.

'You've got mud in your face.'

Daichi at first didn't notice what was said to him. Only a second later he actually registered the words that were shot at him and looked down at the blond. Then he noticed that he still didn't let go of the kids hand.

'Yes.' he muttered and let go of Naruto to move his hands up to his scarf and, without the slightest sign of guilty, treat it as a towel. Not that he had much choice now 'Yes, I do. This thing really gets everywhere, no matter what country I am in.'

The material seemed to be now plainly dirty, but he didn't mind that now. He hoped that was enough. He wanted to ask the kid if he still had it, but then he noticed the confused look on Kakashi's face and his lips sealed immediately. He forgot he was being watched not only one pair of eyes.

'I think I'll be heading back.' he muttered, letting his hands fall down to his sides again. 'Gaara will be available for meeting once he wakes up.'

The blond nodded as if he had any idea about what the older man was talking about, visibly relieved by both the fact he had stopped crying and that he had been released, but still didn't try to move away.

'Okay.' then, because it just seemed like the right thing to do, he added a small 'thank you' before ducking around him and running for the silver-haired teen and half hiding behind him in a small and unusual burst of shyness.

Daichi blinked at the sudden change of the mood, not used to such behavior of ninjas around him. That really was… unexpected, if anything. But kind of nice. Yes. Actually, it was nice. Unmanly but nice. So he tossed only a glance toward confused Kakashi and turned on his heels to go back to his room. He sat too long for his tastes on this coldness. A room would do. He vanished slowly but soundlessly, like he almost always did. Snow was not such a big obstacle when you remembered about it. Kakashi stared after him, puzzled, then at Naruto. What had just happened?...

'Did he do something bad to you?' he asked, out of courtesy, but he knew it was not the thing he wanted to ask about 'Huh?'

'Nothing!' the blond replied a little too fast, eyes sticking to the retreating figure and only moving to give some personal space to the jounin when the other was out of sight. 'He, uh… had stuff to tell mommy.' He kept himself from telling the other what little he had heard about the stuff hadn't been very nice. That didn't matter.

'He said I can go visit Gaara later.' remembering that seemed to be enough for him to remember he was allowed to look at other people when he talked to them, so he turned onto his sitter with wide, pleading eyes and thrust his lower lip out in what couldn't be considered anything but a pleading expression. 'Kashi, can you take me?'

'Maa… but didn't you want to go to Ichiraku?...' said Kakashi neutrally, already feeling that it was going the wrong way. When Naruto was looking at him like that it always meant troubles for him. Because when he agreed the older one made a hell out of his life and when he didn't… it was hard to live through what the little one could prepare. '…we will ask you father first…'

'It's okay, Gaara's taking a nap, we can go to Ichiraku's first.' the blond said without protesting about the part of meeting his father. He took a look at the sun, trying to judge how long they've been there already, but not really getting anything right other than it had been over an hour, though that conclusion came more from his tummy than an actual ability to discern what hour was. 'Can we go now?'

Kakashi looked at Naruto lost in thought, then at the graves behind him, then at Naruto again with much more unhappy face and then at graves… he really didn't feel like if he had spent enough time here yet. But if he would protest then the blond would tell on him to the Hokage and… ah well. He could always come tomorrow.

'All right.' he muttered, closing his eyes and catching Naruto's hand in the middle of it 'Let's get going.'

And with that, they set off.

The little blond seemed to have somehow managed to find ways to somehow further the degree of puppy eyes he gave the older teen each time he looked back and forth between him and the graves, so it was probably fortunate that he was convinced so easily. Besides, he didn't mind visiting his daddy in the middle of the day. There were lots of new things he wanted to ask… But he needed to think about them carefully. Over a nice, big and steaming bowl of freshly made pork ramen. Or maybe three. Or seven.

#+#+#+#+#+#

If the frog was tiny, the paper was minuscule, which made the four letters crapped into it downright impossible to read. The fact two of them were sorta round made it easy to figure it had been meant to be two O's. Unless Minato had figured some fun new word that had two Q's right in the middle of it.

The last letter sort of looked like an M or an N, or possibly a T, but there were only so many letters with two O's in the middle that made sense as an order, so if the Kazekage ever really figured out what the message said wasn't out of the fact Minato's handwriting had gotten better –because it hadn't- or because long time exposition allowed you to finally decipher it –because to date, only Akimichi Setsuna seemed able to fill that role – but simply because he was used to deciphering such messages after too many mission with their lives depending on being able to tell if Minato had meant that thing that looked like a squished ant to be a P, a B or an R.

'ROOM' the paper said. Which probably meant for Daichi to clear his room, make sure the cameras were off and wait for him to appear as soon as he dispelled the tiny familiar that he'd used to bring the message.

When the frog had finally miraculously appeared somewhere in his room, Daichi didn't notice it. It was so small he would see it only if he would start looking out for it. And now he… well, he wasn't exactly seeking. Not that he was doing something weird, not at all. He was actually pretty busy. After coming back to the room he made sure to feel warm and comfortable (that included testing if his bored ANBU members actually remembered how to make a tea between jumping around on every step he made, like if his own shoes were out to get him) and decided to not waste time at anything funny. So, just to expand the horizons of his knowledge, he crept into Gaara's room and took the kid out from bed to study the behavior of trapped bijuu.

As he saw, small traits of sand still followed, even if they did it really slowly. Gaara didn't make the slightest sound at any touch or sound. And that actually didn't change for another half an hour as he kept on taking notes of what was happening around him. It was literally: "first minute, Gaara sleeps'. "second minute, no change', "third minute, no change', "twenty eighth minute, Shukaku is trying to show me the tongue, besides, no change'. After passing of thirty second, just as interesting minute he decided to just let the kid go and leave the job to professional peekers that would make twice as much of a job for him only because he would ask (or demand. Details).

But when he was about to take Gaara out to his own room, the redhead had minimally moved to the side, bumping him lightly on the chest and somehow his legs stopped moving at that, and somehow he found himself staring at the kid and somehow his hair seemed to be just a little irresistible to touch and all in all, accidentally and completely without any kind of logical knowledge they had both ended once again on his own bed again… in such a strange position that someone might've even mistook for a hug or maybe even a cuddle, but wasn't that, he was just tired and Gaara just really suited the place between his arm and elbow… and he was just like a living doll.

After sleeping for so short and being awakened so rudely, Daichi didn't have many problems with closing his eyes and dozing off in the warm atmosphere of the room. So really, he kind of missed the frog when it came to him. Not on the purpose. Really. He only wondered how long would that frog wait for him to actually open his eyes if that stupid sand monster wouldn't actually catch it and started squeezing the life out of it. The frog that size was just perfect for the minimalised Shukaku for a dinner.

'Squeee-' said something slimy as the sand had tightened. He opened lazily one eye. What again, it sounded like if someone was trying to squish a frog-

Like a Shukaku trying to squish a frog. With a groan he got up and slammed his hand upon the table, making most of the sand go flat and letting the rest of it roll freely. Bastard, was still playing tricky on him. 'F U!' said the sand in the talk he saw young ninjas use. He rolled his eyes and picked up the frog. It was obviously from Minato. Only he had such ideas as using those ants to send messages. And then he turned it around and felt his neck going red. 'Room' it said. Which pretty much covered many things. He was a grown up and he was not an idiot, but when it came to this he still felt like a stupid teenager from school days when 'room' meant only one thing. He looked back at the beaver.

'You know what?... I changed my mind.' he said and tossed the frog toward the sand. Only to snicker when the sand actually shot up and caught a phantom of a frog instead of an animal that was still in his hand. 'Oh, you fell for it? You really can't play a game, I swear.' he said and he laughed, letting the frog out. He ignored the mad sizzling of the sand as he obviously touched the sore spot. Then with sigh he looked at the kid again. He really shouldn't be there now… But he didn't have to go first. He was the easiest thing to move after all.

Three hours later, when Gaara finally woken up, the first thing he saw was a pile of shut off cameras on the notepad that wrote something about minutes, mother trying to gnaw on the said notepad and leaving only a faint mark on the paper and Daichi laying next to him and snoring so loudly it was almost too funny to be true. Which was actually scary. Father never did such a thing.

'Did I kill him?...' he thought, but as the chest of Kazekage rose steadily, his mind became more and more confused. 'Maybe I'm still not back from there.' he thought. Possibly, it was that. It was hard to see when the one world had started and other ended. All that concerned that 'sleeping' was still blurry for him. So he decided just to lay as quietly as he could and pretend he wasn't there. Maybe once he would wake up, everything would be back to normal.

#+#+#+#+#+#

If anyone saw the way the Hokage was smiling down at his paper, one would have suspected good news, or at least news more interesting than the fact a genin team had successfully found all twenty one of the lot ducklings from Mr. Gojo's pond. _I'm going to kill him_. Here he was, waiting, expecting, worrying over his, his… Daichi, for lack of proper term, and the bastard wasn't. Doing. A thing.

Now, they had had enough mission together to know what such a message could have meant right?

'Get to the room, make sure no one else is in, block the cameras, I'll be there as soon as you dispel the summon.'

Now, where was the summon? Still in Daichi's house, as it would have dispelled itself if it had been in danger. Why hadn't Dai done as he has expressively ASKED HIM TO?

Because he was a redhead. The world had deemed him recipient of the most stubborn pair of redhead sin the world. Now his only option was to wait for Kakashi to take Naruto over and wait for him to remember Daichi that he had things to do, orders to follow and for his own safety, he better have a good excuse as to why he made him wait this long. Twenty one ducklings, huh- he should just have dated and Uchiha.

It was three hours and fifteen minutes, when Daichi's peaceful state had finally noticed that something was wrong daddy and by that he meant something seriously, seriously wrong, like daddy forgetting to turn off the fire over the empty pot or programming the daddy bomb wrong or daddy!

He opened his eyes up, startled, only to stare at the green ones, just as surprised as his own. What was he doing here?...

'Daddy.' said Gaara again. He slowly moved his hand over his face to wake himself up.

'What.' he asked, which sounded more like 'wuaff' and he yawned. In response, Gaara showed him a little frog.

'It has been staring at you. For a long time.'

'Huh? What is thi-' he said, and stopped, because it was enough to remember and swallow his tongue from embarrassment. 'Oh gods.'

He didn't remember when was the last time when he screwed up so majorly. With face three times as pale he got up from bed and quickly proceeded back to the room, not even bothering to tell Gaara what was going on. Hopefully, it was not too late and Minato- who was he trying to kid. After two minutes he could wish for mercy. Now his payback will be long, dreaded and painful so he would remember that being on time was actually a thing a kage had to do. This should not be as bad as he remembered from his training grounds in his youth – they were already grownups and they were far above such level of sadism, right? But…

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and dispelled the summon. If the truck was going to hit him anyway, it was better to make it quicker. At least he was sure that somewhere out there were ANBU who might've helped him if he hadn't removed all the security system's spies. But they were so good they would help him if anything would happen anyway, right? Right?...

Nothing happened.

Daichi waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, he decided to open one eye. And then, the second.

'Huh?...' he muttered, then, just to be sure, against his policy of not getting into troubles if troubles didn't want him to be in, he tried to dispel the summon once again. It worked, of course the tiny frog wasn't there anymore. The problem was that neither was the Hokage.

Daichi slowly let his hands fall to his sides as he looked around, just to be sure he hadn't missed something – anything, like a Hokage hiding behind a wall or in the flowerpot – but he still hadn't found him anywhere. So… it seemed that he really did screw over. With a sigh, he crouched down, letting his tensed shoulders relax. Minato decided to dispel the spell and now he was going to pay for this one way or another. This really was not what he wanted to do, especially after what had happened in the morning.

'I'm sorry, you hear me?' he said out loud, looking at the ceiling out of the ideas of where to look. He wasn't very sure that Minato heard him, but it never hurt to try. 'I really am! I didn't do that on purpose!...'

But as nothing happened, he only bit on his lip and stared at the wall in front of him. Okay, what now? He really wanted to see Minato, but here it seemed he was not going to be able to. So, it was time to work from his side. He slowly rose from the floor and dusted his pants off. Maybe if he would sing a serenade under his window… or maybe no, he would hire someone to do that first and then check how Minato would react. If the ninja would get skinned alive he would proceed to plan B which he still had to think about. But first, to plan C, to write the last will…

It was then that the Hokage appeared with an undramatic puff of smoke, right next to the drawer where the redhead kept the borrowed kunai. For someone that was suspected of planning new, funny ways to make the redhead scream, he looked remarkably unmurderous.

'Hello, Daichi-kun.' the blond said, smiling in that calm, usual ways of his. And Daichi obviously didn't scream – he was too old, heck, too experienced for that. And besides, Kazekage's seriously didn't scream at the sight of someone appearing from the thin air. But somehow he felt that his blind jump at the wall without really noticing where he was jumping really didn't make him look any better. Especially with the way he bounced back from it.

'H-hi.' he said, trying to not show that the smile of Minato didn't affect him at all. And it would have worked so much better if he would really got up straight from that table and stopped holding it like if he was preparing to shield himself with it, but he couldn't help the way he landed from that wall jump. And somehow, his legs didn't want to support him to the straight position. 'I hope I didn't make you wait long.'

'Three hours.' the Hokage said, the smile just as static as before. 'And eighteen minutes.'

'Ah. That's far too long.' said Daichi, still holding up his polite politician's face, and quickly reverting back to the straight position as it really was the pose he felt the safest with. After all he could get a hold on the kunais in inner pocket the fastest that way. 'I'm really sorry, unexpected difficulties had showed up and I couldn't show up on time.' he kept on smiling, but if anyone could look under his elbows would clearly notice that knuckles, if anything, shouldn't be that white, and surely shouldn't creak so suspiciously.

'It's okay. I figured as much.' Minato seemed to sense how jittery the other was, because he finally opened his eyes and looked at the other concernedly. 'Is everything all right? You look tense.'

Daichi learned just as much to not trust the blonde on his first waves of concern, but he let his shoulders relax. So… so… that was it?... A little hard to believe that such habits could just die out and not show up again.

'Yes, I'm okay.' he said, then slowly moved forward, then he looked at his feet, watching them going 'I really didn't plan on doing something like that.' he added, just to make sure that Minato heard him right, just in case. Then he looked at him and let his hands fall to his sides. 'To what reason should I be grateful to see you here?' he murmured, looking at the blond. Minato surely was a pretty man, even if he made him scared from time to time. In that sweet light of the winter his blonde hair shone like if he had halo over his head. Lovely.

'I was worried about you so I wanted to make sure you were all right.' the younger man took a few steps closer as well, reaching with a hand to ruffled the other's hair, but stopped short of finishing the gesture, eyes narrowing as he stared at the window.

'You're kidding me, right?' The other man welcomed the gesture with more than a joyous expression. He missed the affection of the blonde and it felt so nice to feel it… as Minato slowly turned his head to the window, Daichi unconsciously followed with his eyes, still half lost in enjoying the simple pleasures. But when he looked at the window, he saw…

Nothing. Just the curtains he had closed himself. As to prevent unwanted attention. There was a small, gentle tug at the neck of the tight shirt he wore as the blond pulled it away from the skin… Only to immediately dump the contents of the paper cup he brought into it, which amount to half a dozen ice cubes.

Daichi's eyes went suddenly very wide as he took a big inhale of breath and just held it in, straightening his backbone to the point it was almost impossible for a human to stand. Everything in him just begged for him to scream, but that was too much of them to ask, since that would really make other people hear him… hear him and see that he actually got dumped a pack of ice cubes down his shirt.

'You!... You!...' he gasped out in disbelief, then he moved his hand to get off the shirt as quickly as possible. Ice cubes rattled on the floor along the kunais that fell with them, unattached in the totally inelegant process of undressing. 'How could you do that!... Ice is cold, for gods' sake!...'

Like if it wasn't obvious. But he had to say something or else he would simply bite through his tongue. The blond was giving him a positively sadistic smile, all teeth and the gleeful expression of a first grade teacher on the first day of exam his students would have the face.

'You made me wait. Three. Hours.' he hissed through his teeth, the smile unchanging. 'And eighteen minutes.'

'I said I'm sorry!' answered Daichi, flushed from the unexpected rush toward getting off the cold icicles from him. His hair stood on ten different poses, completely messed up by the next that was hanging loosely from his arm now, along with the shirt 'But I couldn't help it! He was just looking so comfortable that I just had to close my eyes for a minute! I haven't noticed I was so tired that I would be knocked out like that! And you and your ice cubes…!' Without a thought he messed up his both shirts into a ball and shot it at the blond without much force '…that's just awful!'

'Maybe you should be a bit more appreciating of the fact you didn't turn around more? I was originally aiming for your pants.' The blond said in another hiss, giving the shorter man a dirty look, though his expression changed almost unwillingly at the other's words.

'Tired, Dai?' he asked in a way that should have sounded teasing, yet really wasn't as he ignored the clutter in the floor and walked closer to the other again, one hand reaching to feel his forehead and make sure he didn't have a fever. 'Baby told me you've been crying. Are you really okay?'

Because that's the only reason he'd been worried to begin with, it wasn't like Daichi to cry, or to do it in front of anyone, much less a five year old. The poison should have by all means have been incorporated into his own bloodstream by now. Daichi only now had caught up with the change of the mood, but before his senses had finally kicked in, Minato was already again sweet, lovely and well… caring. It really was like on vertigo with him. Not that he couldn't bear it, but… His look had immediately darkened as he crossed his arms. For a moment he looked like a pouty five years old. But he didn't push the arm away.

'I have no idea what are you talking about. I think your kid must have imagined something. I'm perfectly healthy.'

'Your eyes are red.' the blond said without even looking at them. No, Daichi didn't have a fever, which was good, but he still had been taxed enough he had ignored him for hours. 'What were you doing in the cemetery?' and just because Daichi was there, all of that soft, not-quite-pale scarred and now tattooed skin covering muscles and gooseflesh he let his hand fall down and used it to pull the other closer, and wrapping his arms around the other's neck.

The other man, slowly, hesitantly but steadily let the blond pull him into the hug, and yet, he still didn't uncross his arms. Was it really showing after so much time? Either not washing face after crying has some strange effects on his skin or Minato was a really good ninja. Yeah. It was definitely the water. He closed his lips, looking at the blond with a weary stare. His throat and his chores itched for him to say 'searching for a goldfish' or 'just walking around' or even the more rude 'it's not your business', but when all he remembered was sitting near this fresh, so fresh grave that didn't have chance to get a proper crack on the marble anywhere, it really was not suitable.

His eyebrows bended for a moment in painful expression, making a brief sign that maybe he would look like that if he would decide to cry now, but it was gone quicker than it came. He slowly chewed on his lower lips.

'I made promise.' he murmured. Minato seemed to be just a sadistic psycho sometimes, at some his good nature showed and at some he was just a great Hokage, but in the end he was a little lost, like every one of them were and he… he wanted to take care of that lost soul. Because it was so precious. He smiled a bit, only with the corner of his mouth. 'I love you.' he said it quietly. Just like that. It was so easy.

'I love you.' he muttered again, like if he couldn't believe in this himself. 'Did you hear me?... I love you so very, very much.'

They were very into each other's personal space, something that previously had only happened when Daichi wanted to make attempts into hinting at things, and it wasn't exactly hard on him, just a bit difficult because he was unused… and for some reason it was very different, because Daichi acted completely unlike he ever did before. Minato couldn't understand why, but accepted it nonetheless.

The words again made the blond jump a little and look at the other with something that was a little too complex to figure accurately, making him look both uncomfortable, worried, and maybe a little scared. His lips tightened a bit. _Does that make you happy?_ He didn't know why that was what he felt he should ask… Only what he really wanted was to know the answer, not ask for it. Because if the answer was anything but 'yes', he didn't know what he would do. Actually, he didn't know what he would do even if the answer was yes.

_Does that make you happy? Does this seal make you happy, does what I did fix things for you?_ And it was childish to want to know those things. Childish and useless and even irritating.

'Okay.' he pulled the redhead closer still and hugged him a little too delicately, as if the other had even been within anyone's parameter's of 'frail'. Not looking at the other didn't make it any easier, and it surely would let Dai feel how fast his heart was beating, but he couldn't figure out what else to do in this situation. 'I heard.'

Is it all right this time?

Those words made the light smile on the red-haired man's lips widen ever so lightly. It still wasn't a response of the romantic, safe kind, where on every 'love you' was whispered 'love too' with thousand of kisses following, but heck, that was a freaking life and he expected it nonetheless. Or rather – he didn't know what he had expected. For the first half of his life he expected to be laughed at or maybe having some bones broken in return as he knew that he wouldn't just stand simple refusal and would sooner or later lower himself so much he would beg for acceptance. And everything about this idea was sad, painful and totally hilarious, in that wrong, pitiful way.

Then he stopped thinking about saying anything at all. And now? Now he simply stood his ground and everything that had to be said was already said, so what really could have been expected here? He closed his eyes for a moment, delighted with the hold that was put on him, even if it seemed to be lacking firmness. For real? Nothing. He didn't expect anything. He just went with the flow. And it seemed to be right, so… He opened his eyes.

'I just wanted you to know.' he murmured, then pulled the man into a hug himself. It felt good, to move his hands around the warm body and feel its presence, its curves and its strength and weakness. He loved this form. The sound his hands made when he slowly moved them up from the waist to the shoulder blades was a pleasure itself. For a moment it felt like if doing that was the best thing he could ever do and he didn't want it to stop. He smiled again, finally stopping his hands and moving them down to waist again. 'So don't forget, okay?'

The blond couldn't help squirming a bit and leaning more into the whole at the way the other touched him, sort of ticklish in a not really annoying way, more like nice, nodding at what the older man said, and yet… This felt a little too real and a little too overwhelming, and despite his best efforts he couldn't help the Basic need that asked him to ruin the moment. So he did. He smiled against the bare skin of the other's shoulder, his voice slightly muffled by the other's skin. 'So, uh… sex now?'

Daichi's hands stopped in the middle of the movement, just as fast as the words were uttered. For a moment the silence seemed to be so overpowering that it could be almost sliced with a knife. Then, softly, very softly, a vibrant giggle could be heard – at first, only as a hidden rumble in the chest, then as a freed laughter at lightly opened mouth. This was just hilarious.

'Ah, Minato-kun…' he muttered between the giggles, as one of his hands wandered to the blond strands and uncovered the fragile ear, so he could lean toward it. The voice he used was low and not meant for political discussions 'How sweet of you that you proposed that. Come and feel my heated passion and I shall melt your sands into quartz. Rawrrr.'

And just to accent those words, he blew the air into the blond's ear only to push him away in the good natured move . Even then he couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled within him. It was easier to cover the little shock that this statement made on him. Somehow, the idea of two of them actually considering such activity never seemed more real than a dream for him. Funny, considering that neither of them was that young actually.

'You really are impossible after all. I was serious, darn you.'

'As long as you don't add 'youthful' or 'blooming whatever' into that sentence, I'm in.' the blond said, rubbing at his ear to get the weird sensation out as he smiled back at the older man. And here he'd been worried the redhead would kill him after joking about something like that at such a moment… Luckily he'd just thought it funny. Which was nice. He liked it when the redhead did it, and it wasn't often that he got to hear it, if anyone. 'I know, I know, Yondaime-sama,' he finally dropped the hand, just smiling at the other normally.

'You just worry me… And I need to be going either way, I left just one clone and I'm still on working hours. You sure you'll be all right?'

Daichi smiled in response with the standard tight smile of his. He tried his best to look as composed as usual, but still, he couldn't hide the softened glint in his eyes when he looked at the blond. He couldn't help it – the blond's question was just much more than he could expect from half of the village to think about in the wildest dreams and he really didn't have anyone else in past years beside the villagers. Which once again made him feel inner warmth spreading and admiration grow. He really, really loved Minato.

'Of course I'll be all right. Why do you think I won't? I'm a strong man after all.' he said, moving his body a little bit to the front so Minato could see how many muscles he actually had on his chest in this light. If anyone could be considered weak in this room it definitely wasn't him. 'No need for your imaginary worries. Go back to the paperwork before your clone signs the papers for war over the noodles soup. But feel free to come back anytime soon.'

'I don't know…' the blond said, sounding a little distracted as he stared at the other's chest. 'Maybe because you give yourself heart attacks when I'm not around.' When he finally did look up, his eyes were a little glazed and his expression less than impressed. 'I hate you. Now I really do want to have sex.'

With a regretful sigh, the blond raised his hands in the seal and was again gone. Daichi stared for a moment at the place where a seconds ago the blond could be found, then he let his eyelids fall, closing his eyes.

'I'd tell you to suck it up… but I don't think I'm the one to talk.' he murmured, and bended for his shirt. After a moment of thinking, he crouched again and took three pieces of melting ice that kept on laying on the ground. 'I'll be the one thinking about it for the rest of the day.' he muttered, sucking on the pieces of frozen water. He really disliked how cold it seemed, but when it came to distraction… it provided well for a substitute of a nail to bite or a thumb to suck. Or maybe even something else he didn't really want to think about.

After gathering his weapons, finally, he left the room. And after a moment or two, the smile once again shone on his lips. Maybe it was not very nice of him… but then… when he thought about how stimulating he could be for the blond even when he didn't really do much, he felt the vicious pang of pride. So, working out really paid off after all. His sweet, sexy Hokage. _His._

'Once the time will be right we will play.' he muttered, smiling to himself 'In The Thousand and One night stories.'

Baki looked at him weirdly, but he didn't notice that. After all, it was hard to get out the sweet image of naked Minato changing in the hot springs even with that deformed scar of his. So very, very hard.

#+#+#+#+#+#

It wasn't Minato's day, because by the time he was back his clone had Naruto on his lap, his secretary was just leaving tea for him and Kakashi and his jounin gave him a look he didn't like too much after making sure that yes, there were two Hokage's on the office, which meant Minato had again left a clone and ran away to do whatever without any sort of escort of security. To top things his clone seemed to agree because it facepalmed after giving him a look that pretty much said 'I-can't-believe-you-just-did-this-before-checking-we-were-alone' and seemed to ponder if to take cover under the desk before his secretary tried to kill him.

He smiled at the four occupants of the room brightly.

'Oh, hello Setsuna-san, Kakashi-kun, baby… other me.' The clone smiled back sweetly and raised a hand in an 'L' symbol. 'Now, that's not very nice.'

Naruto, who was busy munching on a strawberry pocky looked first at the clone he was sitting on, then at his real father.

'Daddy?'

'Baby?'

'Where were you?' Aaand there went his hopes Setsuna and Kakashi would be too polite to pry.

'I went to check Kazekage-sama didn't do anything weird to Kushina's grave.' Hey, that was a good excuse. He was so glad he had survived this far and learn through his years to keep a semi-automatic tab on what was going on so he could have believable excuses around. He also felt rather thankful at life for teaching him to lie more convincingly than Obito ever had. That seemed to be convincing enough for the little blond.

'He messed up the dirt.' Naruto said, rummaging through the small pack and taking a stick, before handing it to him.

'I saw, it's nothing.' No he hadn't, but who cared about dirt or graves? 'Why'd you two come back?'

'If I can go meet Gaara, can I take Hinata-chan and Neji with me?' Good question, that one. No. He could have asked and he might even have convinced the twins of taking the kids if he was very nice and promised to be very careful and swore Gaara wasn't a danger anymore, but Hizashi had been really nice with all the help he'd been giving him, and rewarding it with giving the man an ulcer just didn't seem like a nice thing to do.

He knew Gaara wasn't a danger, but Hizashi had never been very inclined for seals and as much a she might trust his, he did see a monster made of poisoned chakra try to eat them. He didn't think he'd be ecstatic about leaving his niece and only son near its container without some heavy medication involved.

'Maybe next time, baby. It's lateish now and they must be having their lessons.'

'But daddy, they can have lessons everyday! Gaara won't stay here forever…' If anything, he might stay another day, but if the weather kept clearing and the luggage he'd seen in Dai's room were any sort of subtle clue, they'd be leaving in the morning.

'Maybe next time, Naruto.' he repeated, taking the little blonde form the clone's lap so it could dispel itself. The blonde pouted at him.

'That's not fair.'

'Tell me about it.' he said with a little chuckle, pointing at the table. 'See that pile of reports? My slavedriver of a secretary expects me to go through them all and finish them before her shift ends. Does that sound fair to you?' The older woman, chuckled lightly.

'It sounds very fair, considering I went through them first, Hokage-sama. But don't worry, I have a new pile of C ranked reports waiting for you to go through and straighten your perspective of fairness.'

Minato winced. Yeah, today wasn't his day.

The Kazekage of Suna was – surprisingly – not doing much better. After coming back to his room he discovered that all his slaves – pardon, Suna shinobis – decided to think ahead of him and already started to pack their belongings. Which wasn't very much, but still needed a good coordination and his looking over. To his dismay, he discovered that they probably wouldn't be able to leave this evening, but tomorrow's morning sounded pretty well and that by then everyone should be ready as new. Which was pretty much too soon for his tastes.

'Why are you looking so gloom, Daichi?' commented the old woman as she passed him with the hands full of strange brown colored herbs 'Smile, you're scaring the kids.'

He looked down. The 'kids' looked quite cheery for being scared if running around the legs of ANBU was any indication. He couldn't remember when was the last time he heard Gaara squealing so much. The blond, who came over as he promised did his best to match their joyous shouts. Or could she mean his other two kids he took with himself because he was afraid that Yashamaru will only give them alcohol for food and leave them alone for kidnapping? It could be.

In comparison to Gaara and Naruto, Kankuro and Temari looked like if they were going to another funeral while they were only sorting his clothes. They still didn't trust him and much less they did trust Gaara. It was too much to forget, especially as he didn't really introduce them to anything that happened. When he entered their room to see if they didn't forget anything from them he saw that one of the legs of the table was carved into some strange hootoo that even an adult puppeteer would be scared to use and that the window's lock was broken. Gods only knew where his kids wandered off on such cold and how far they went. He glared at them and scoffed them for at least an hour, and the ANBU that was supposed to guard them also got a heavy reprimand (along with the promise of kicking out of the job, but he didn't seem to be very worried as he just shrugged him off and walked toward the Konoha's team and stayed with them. That pissed Daichi off twice as much, but without the person to aim his anger at it soon flatted like a broken balloon). Now he's got an eye on them both, but beside looking grim, his kids didn't try any more tricks. Which was pretty good, at least for now. Only it wasn't, because the silence that hanged above them while Gaara and his friend squealed and the ANBU chattered was twice as heavy to bear.

Not to mention that he was leaving Konoha and gods only knew for how long this state would last. He remembered that when he came to the village he had only prayed for the stay to end, but now he would be more than happy to steal a day or two and spend them somewhere hidden where he could just grab a hold on the blonde and… Okay, maybe three days. But now he even doubted he would even get a peck on the lips. As far as he knew, half of both of their villages would be gaping at them when they will be exchanging their formal goodbyes and that was it. And knowing how far both Suna and Konoha were, he could only expect the visit to happen once in a while… twice a year if he was lucky. Which pretty much sucked.

He didn't want to end it like that. Not with such perspectives. With a tightened lips he lied the unformed bundle of a coat on the top of the rest of his shirts and looked at both of his older kids.

'Hey…' he muttered quietly. Kids looked at him only with the corners of their eye, as they were taught when he used such a low murmur 'Want to go for a walk?...'

They looked at him in silence, then hid their heads in their arms like if they wanted to pretend that they didn't actually know him. He felt disappointed. For once it could be fun to actually infiltrate the territory of Konoha ninja way and test his abilities as a formal ninja, but then… who wouldn't notice him missing?...

Besides, if he went out like that even if he would reach the blond all he would be able to do was to stare at him silence as he had no idea what kind of securities lied within the Hokage's tower. But if they were like anything in his own, probably even a blink would be noticeable. And unlike Minato, he didn't have the system of small messengers to get the informations to the Hokage. His smallest hawk was still the size of a little chicken and that wouldn't get past any ANBU unnoticed. Especially as his birds had the feathers that matched mostly deserted lands – visible on the snowy lands like a poisonous snake on the naked grounds.

He didn't really have time to repaint it now, unless he would want to use flour he simply didn't take as he didn't think he'd have to use the special bird for special messages to send love letters. Heck, he wasn't even thinking that he'll be able to think about doing something like that. Which pretty much, made him left on his own for a mission he could only try of he had more time and less people surrounding him right now. With the bitter grimace he showed his golden coat into the pack in uncaring manner and turned around to stare at the window. Yep, the light in the Hokage's tower were still on.

At least he wasn't alone in this. But damn… he missed him already. Something bubbled behind his ear. Like an old forgotten feeling that never really left. He didn't want to remember what it was.


	33. Chapter Thirty Three: Smile for me

In the tower, the Hokage grinned madly at the pile of papers in front of him. He didn't quite dare to ask, as the last times he'd done it Setsuna had just brought more piles of reports for him to sign, and go through, but he was almost completely, positively sure. Either she didn't have anymore or she'd have to get a new desk for him.

'Well, it seems like high time for me to be returning home….'

He waited. After three seconds of no buxom Akimichi's jumping from the shadows to attack him with more paperwork, he quickly grabbed his things, made sure the stacks of papers were arranged like his secretary liked it, then ran for a window to make his escape. He ran from the tower as fast as he could, and for once he had a good reason to. He had cake to finish, babies to pick up, revenge to be had. If some nice groping also managed to come out of all of this, he'd call it a good day. A very good day indeed.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Eeeewww.'

'Oh, for the love of gods, just do it.'

The little boy cringed a bit but obediently pulled the little brown seed out of the bigger brown fruit and pushed it aside. Behind him, Temari scrunched up her nose as she did the same. Daichi couldn't really blame them. He smelled many different things while living in Suna, but the weeds in Konoha had particularly strong smell. In Suna everything was dulled by heat. Even the three ANBUs that were left with nothing to do and volunteered to help looked particularly unwell while doing the third bowl of the smelly substance. Like if his grandmother couldn't simply take those to Suna without doing it over.

'You know very well that water is sometimes too important to let it slide and as far we have a lot of it in the air here so why waste the homeland resources?' she said as he walked up to the kitchen, ready to sneak out. She didn't have to explain anything, he knew that she knew that he wanted to get away from this place and it all ended up with everyone who had nothing else to do helping with her work she could as well do alone. At least his image of a leader who worked with his people got build up by it. Lately he really missed on his public image for constantly being out of the picture of his slaves… pardon, co-workers.

But he couldn't help it. He didn't want to sit and help. His insides churned as he wanted to simply go out and forget he had any obligations to meet and just take a peek at Minato. Or maybe a longer peek. Just watch him while he was sleeping and do his best to resist the wonderful smell-

'Ow!' he hissed as his hand was suddenly hit with the dull side of a kunai 'What the…!'

'Don't lick your fingers. This stuff is poisonous.' said Chiyo, looking at him with a gaze that seemed to be indicating much more than him trying to suddenly et his digits into his mouth. Like… not thinking the thoughts he was thinking. Not that he was thinking what he was thinking intentionally, because if he intentionally thought of his thoughts then on the final thought there would be very little left to imagination. -slap!- 'I said don't lick them! What are you doing?' Daichi smiled back at her, though there was very little joy in his smile.

'Eating out.' and while all the faces of ANBU burned in deep crimson, no other words were uttered in the silent room.

Of course such silence begged for an interruption, and as usual it was interrupted by a shrill cry of delight uttered by the little blond when his father finally decided to make act of appearance.

'Hi, baby, Gaara-sama.' the Hokage greeted warmly as he walked into the room with the little blonde trotting happily after him, weather it was by genuine delight of seeing him or the sweet scent of what he was carrying on the bag would be difficult to say. He stopped a moment, eyebrows rising at seeing such a large group in the kitchen, especially because most were males and feminism and equality among the sexes was taking a good long time to reach the sandy depths of Wind country. Of course, Chiyo there, which probably meant no silly XY chromosome laden human would dare to utter a peep on regards of a woman's place in the house. 'Hi Princess, Kankuro-sama, Kazekage-sama.' he said brightly, giving the group a small bow. 'Rest of the Suna nins in the room, salutes.' finally having done his share of pleasantries, he turned towards the short figure of the old woman and offered her the bag. 'As promised, old lady, just let it cool, I just got it out of the oven.'

All of the group murmured loudly some of the normal greetings, as much as they could while being at their levels. The kids looked at him and waved at him with dirty hands as their father didn't stop doing the remaining fruit, though he nodded toward him in the indifferent manner (which didn't mean that he didn't watch him from coming inside from the doors. His heart leapt once or twice, like a dog on the leash, but he didn't let it show anywhere. Inside such a group it would be more than suicidal. It was a mass murder as he'd have to assassinate every witness.

'Oh, is that for me?' said Chiyo, looking inside the bag. The sweet smell flew around the kitchen in the dusky, flourish cloud. Both Kankuro and Temari rose their heads in question as the old lady squinted her eyes and started laughing.

'Christmas?' piped the little girl suddenly 'Father, is this Christmas?' Daichi looked at her, surprised. What?

'Why do you think so?' he muttered. The girl shrugged.

'There's snow and cake.' she answered truthfully. He frowned. Such a plain view didn't suit his daughter's view.

'And Santa.' said Kankuro quietly, then ducked under the table as the 'ho ho ho'ing Chiyo smacked the air above his head.

'Damn right, brat! Christmas! But don't expect from me to share for such statement! It's aaall mine!' she said and then she's got off the table. The ANBUs looked with hope on her, but she had only laughed more and shook her head. 'Keep on working, boys, there's still so much to do before we leave this place!' And with a ringing laughter she vanished inside the house. The kids looked at her with disappointed faces.

'I really thought it's Christmas.' As the answer to that the youngest of the three had looked at the older blond.

'Are you the reindeer then? Your nose looks red.'

As all response the blonde rubbed said red nose and grinned sheepishly.

'So… the cake wasn't for us?' Naruto, who was still pretty much clinging to his father's pants legs gave him a pouty look with closed eyes.

'No, that was a cake for Chiyo-sama, I promised her one the other day.' he told him with a small smile as he ruffled the soft blond spikes.

'I wanted that cake.' the blond pouted even more. 'It smelled good.'

'Smelt.' Minato corrected automatically, giving a look at the other kids around as his smile turned a bit more strained. 'Ah… I should have thought about it before, shouldn't I…' he asked with a nervous little chuckle. Pouty face of baby and three other faces with varying degrees of disappointed faces greet him in response.

'Yeah, that wasn't very thoughtful of me. Sorry.' Crouching down he put an arms around his son's shoulders conspirationally. 'Why don't you get Kakashi-kun to walk you to the bakery and the whole of you pick whatever you want from there? Just tell them to put it on my tab.' Naruto finally opened sparkly eyes the color of cloudless summer skies and nodded brightly, a huge smile on his face.

'All right, Kazekage-sama?' he turned to the redhead's back. 'All things considered, my son wants to invite yours for some desserts, can my jounin escort them?'

Daichi removed slowly the seed from another fruit, then he looked at him.

'Are you kidding me? Of course not. ' he said, not really doing anything about how the faces of his kids, lit up so much a second before, turned off like a broken light bulb in one second. Maybe in other circumstance he would agree, but here? Now? He'd rather get it on with Orochimaru. 'It's freezing outside and I don't think that – with all respect to Hatake family – that your jounin can take care of them all. Kids tend to be harder to take care of than some criminals.'

The ANBU near him moved again, obviously moved by his words. The nearest one of them, with a mask of lark – and obviously the most courageous one – slowly rose his hand.

'Kazekage-sama… maybe we could escort them-'

'Baki will do it.' spoke Daichi, like if he hadn't heard a word. 'If Baki will dress them up and escort them along your Hatake kid, then I'll let them go.' Then he turned toward the ANBU with a surprised written on his face.

'Yes?' The ninjas once again got back to their fruit-peeling in a gruesome atmosphere.

'I'll get him.' said the brown-haired boy and leapt from the chair. As much as the girl tried to conceal her giddiness, it didn't work much. It was obvious she was excited. Gaara on the other hand looked only confused.

'I don't like sweets.'

Minato gave the kid a suffering look.

'So young and already so much like your father?' he made a long suffering sigh. 'Whenever we wanted to celebrate anything it was a disaster to settle where to go because Kazekage-sama didn't want to eats sweets like normal human beings do.' A moment to nod at the older kids, as if he sympathized. 'You can buy sour candy, there's lots of flavors to pick up from. And there's coffee-flavored cake.'

Gaara's eyes had suddenly lit up.

'Coffee?' he muttered. The little girl had also looked at him with interest at the mention of the word. They couldn't drink coffee. Ever since father had The Thing they Didn't Speak About they lost all hopes to taste the sunanian coffee once they'd grow up. The tiniest seed was removed from the house on the order of the great grandmother.

'We… have baklava at home.' she said carefully as she glanced back and forth between the two leaders of the countries. Daichi's eyes had squinted in unpleasant stare as he puckered his lips at the uttered words (though the tint of a smile couldn't be hidden that well). What was Minato saying? His diet was perfectly fine, so unlike the blond one's – he kept on having those chocolate candies in every place he sat for longer than ten minutes. Which included the phoning booth outside the tower.

'No coffee.' he said with a solid tone 'Not any of you. But beside that, I don't care as long as he pays.' Then he turned toward the table and started peeling another fruit. 'I hope you have enough of money, Minato-kun.'

'I know, princess.' he told the little girl pleasantly. 'I love baklava from Suna- it's the only reason you can convince me to go that giant frying pan.' It was a joke, of course. If there was one aspect the blonde was very maleish about was food. Minato might not eat at Naruto's speed or as much in one go as Chiyo could, but he was one of those persons that while not exactly constantly hungry, was always willing to eat something. And while he did prefer creamier stuff, the flaky, honeyed sweetness of baklava was very nice to have once a while.

He grinned at the Kazekage's back, shrugging his shoulders.

'You know I never really do.' he said good naturedly. 'The good thing about being a Hokage is that while everyone knows where to find, my ANBU make sure no one comes and tries to break my legs to get me to pay back.'

Being almost unanimously adored by the village and having a clean record of actually paying off his debts also helped, but that didn't mean he didn't usually have to wait at least half a month to be able to do so. Or be immensely thankful his son favored something as cheap as ramen the way he did, because otherwise he didn't know how he'd be able to afford meals. In fact, he was Sure ever since Naruto had had that first fateful bowl, Teuchi's shop had gotten a lot more renovations than any other shop in Konoha.

He ignored the redhead a few more moments as he busied himself with getting Naruto into his orange parka (and ignoring the looks Kakashi and Baki were giving him, and he wouldn't be surprised if at least his student decided to start binge eating just to get revenge for dropping five kids on him without so much as hinting what he planned to do) and it was only after everyone had gone and he made a short trip to the bathroom just to make sure the old lady had really gone away to make his part of the deal that he started dressing back in his jacket, for all intentions to go back home.

'Oh, that's right…' he said as he finished getting his gloves in place. 'Kazekage-sama, you never really gave me the documentation on the reports from the border. We have the ones you gave us, but not the official ones with the seal.' Only Daichi had given it to him pretty much the first week before any of this maddeningly brilliant plan of his had so much as even started getting worked on. But that's not something ANBU knew about.

'If you could just give it to me, I'll be on my way. Papers do tend to get misplaced in last minute preparations and I wouldn't want to see you have to undo your luggage going through them at four in the morning in the middle of a blizzard.' Now just to get Daichi alone to his room.

The other man looked at the blond with focused, serious glare. Just… what the hell. He remembered pretty well how beautifully packed nicely formed scrolls with yellowish paper and covered in blue ink were handed to the man so long ago. He was anything and he could be called many – really, many names – but not the forgetful one. It was obviously a bait to get him out of here – but did he really expect for ANBU to no notice his absence for longer than three minutes? They all knew him and his habits too well to know that any longer waste of time was supposed to trigger an alarm in the group. If he hadn't sent Baki with the kids he'd probably assure them about him being nearby, but now… Nevertheless, even so, he was more up for a few seconds of privacy than nothing at all.

'Of course.' he muttered as he had got off the table and walked up to the sink where the antidote made of fat lied 'Right away. Forgive me my clumsiness, but I swear, if Baki wasn't so occupied…' He accented the word Baki quite harshly, just to make sure that Minato got the point as he dipped his juiced fingers into the greasy transparent sebum. The tips of his fingers, that stung with unpleasant tingle for the whole evening suddenly calmed down, like if he had pushed the burning pieces of coals underwater.

Of course, now his hands were covered in fat that stained every possible thing, but if he knew how to use it, there was not a problem. Without a thought he smeared it across his palms, like he used to when he was out on the dessert – the dry skin sucked on it rapidly, making the fat leave only the faint taint of glistening around the skin. Then he turned around, careful to not look at the man for too long, though his clothes were more than a sign of that he really didn't need to think about Baki. But did he look charming…

He knew that this image, just as many more, he would take with himself hidden in his photographic memory to look at them later again and again until the time would make them seem transparent and impossible to distinguish – until they'd completely fade away.

'Keep working on.' he muttered to his ANBU as he went by. There was no need to say more. Just to be sure they didn't follow. And then he moved his hand up, showing Minato to follow. With every step he made through the masses of people that moved around, packing things and shouting things at each other he felt his chest becoming tight, tighter, the tightest as his heart grew and beat slowly, slower, the slowest…

When he reached for the knob on his door he felt almost like the first time he dove underwater. It was silent, it was dark and it was so deafeningly deaf that everything he could hear was his own heartbeat and the blood swirling behind his ears. Almost like at the dessert, only without this maddening heat that made the most longanimous stare around with wild stare and pray to the Moon whenever it showed up. B-dmp. B-dmp. Was it a heart attack again?... What if it was?...

He swallowed the saliva in dry mouth and stared at the knob for a painstakingly long, useless second. Then, finally, with the strength that was required for much more important tasks he managed to push the thing and open the door. It was already dark inside. The only source of light – the wide window at the east side showed the glinting snow laying silently on the ground as the waning gibbous slowly marched through the still sky. It was eerie and calm – an obvious sign that tomorrow morning the weather won't be any obstacle for travelers.

It was a painful thought. He shot a short glance behind him, not really registering anything beyond and moved forward to light the oil lamp with one trained bend of a hand that lighted many of such in the previous life and then moved to his luggage. Behind the nicely folded dessert clothes that would become necessary after the second day of travelling and three bottles of 'almost like apples but I'm not sure from where and something like a very watered down Konoha's 'Leaflet' since I can feel Konoha here but also I don't know, bits of soap and is this shampoo I'm feeling? No, must be the sandalwood though how come you wear sandalwood, Daichi, as a man? Oh, no, sorry, that must've been a mistake, I only feel mint now' (he'd be dead if he used it again, but it would be good to see Yashamaru wear it on… let's call it accident on the day he'd went to the market. For sure.) laid three empty scrolls for anything he'd think about. In silence he reopened the one and after biting through his numb from overusage thumb he smeared his own name on it, only to close it and toss it at the blond. If Minato needed anything like that he was more than eager to help.

'I hope this satisfies your needs.' he muttered as he turned around and licked his dry lips 'But I'm not giving you more until you'll pay the right price for removing the Kazekage from his duties.'

Minato was staring at him with that sudden spike of interest that only shed blood seemed to bring to his eyes, and for a moment it almost looked as if he wouldn't manage to catch the scroll. He did, though, pulling it beneath his jacket and packing it in one of the pockets his jounin vest had, then gave the redhead an innocent smile.

'Daichi-kun?'

'Yes?'

'…smile for the camera.' Giving the victory sign to said device, the blond took out one of his kunai with the other, and pressing it between his lips, used the hand he hadn't used to grip the redhead's arm to execute a hand seal.

A moment later the pair disappeared in a puff of smoke, a lone little paper fluttering to the ground as memory they had ever been there.

_I.O.U one Yondaime Kazekage from Sunagakure, Wind Country To be returned (in possible varying states of inebriation) shortly before his trip. Signed: Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage from Konohagakure._

On the other side of the paper, scribbled in a comparatively almost unidentifiable handwriting read the following: _Tell Chiyo-sama upon her return to feel free to keep Hatake Kakashi and Namikaze Naruto as hostages to barter Kazekage-sama__'s return. _

_Ps: Tell Baki to make sure Naruto doesn't stay up later t__han midnight or I__'ll make him pay. _

When the ANBU came (which was, approximately, five minutes later), the silence that filled the room, stayed unwavered.

'I…' said the jounin wearing the vulture's mask. The thought drifted away in silence as the jounin wearing the mask of a dingo dog shrugged helplessly with his arms.

'We must let someone know.' added finally the one with lark mask on. 'Baki-sama will not be happy about this.' The whole three of ANBUs sighed in unison. And indeed, he wasn't.

'So.' he said slowly, as he used the yellowish napkin to brush the pink sugar from his fat lips 'You want to say that for some unknown to me reason the Hokage of the Konoha kidnapped our leader just from under your noses?'

Three ANBU's kneeled silently before him in silence, not daring to answer. The bright insides of a café and laughter of the kids inside were not a bit calming, even if at the usual atmosphere the warm air would be more than welcome on their deserted skin.

'I… I guess so.' Finally answered the lark mask. Baki looked at him, then slumped on the chair on which he was sitting.

'I see. You're dismissed then.' The jounins moved lightly. What?...

'But…' started the vulture, but Baki waved him off with a single hand move.

'I'll take care of that. You can go back and peel off the fruits. Inform Chiyo-sama on the matter when she is back.'

The jounins nodded slightly and vanished. If that's how the older man wanted to take care of it, it was his choice. At least, if his neck would get cut, they'd have enough time to salve themselves with running. The other man watched them going for a moment, then in silence looked at the puffy creamed pastries covered in pink sugar. It was so sweet it made his tongue numb and their price was more than luxury – twelve ryuu per each was a standard made only for those who didn't know what to do with money. Gaara wanted to try some, so he decided to take it for him, but as the kid made a face at the first bite, it was left to him, as he was the only one who didn't choose his own pastry yet. And now it was more than enough for him. Really. He had gluttoned himself to the tilt of his neck.

So, after the second thought, he took four instead of five of such cakes and started stuffing his mouth with sugared sugar that tasted like sugar.

'Baki-san?' asked the young Hatake in question. Without a comment the jounin moved the piece of paper near the Kakashi's nose. After a moment he could swear he saw something too close to recognition in this one and only blackish eye. And then Kakashi stood up.

'Anyone wants a cake?' he asked in the calm indifferent voice. Kankuro and Temari looked at each other between the bites of their chosen candies as Gaara slowly sucked on the bitter lemon drops. Cake sounded awesome, but so far they saw they were all beautiful, rich and expensive, expensive and expensive one more time.

That's why they all took little pieces of cookie that didn't cost even half of the price of a piece of cake – to not be rude or intruding in this situation.

'Okay, then I'll get myself some.' said the jounin nonchalantly as he stood up. In a moment, he came back with three plates of different kind of layer cakes, in which one was made from bitter grapes and the other was all covered in chocolate.

After ten minutes of staring as the young jounin stuffed his face with all of them, the rest of the table had silently joined in, munching on the remnants like little hamsters. Kakashi didn't protest at all. After a moment he even brought the big plate of something that people from Suna never tried before – ice cream.

'That's the best day ever.' said Gaara munching around the green ball of frozen mint. Kankuro and Temari nodded in unison.

On the other hand, Daichi didn't share their thoughts equally. After a moment of wild swirling that amounted to every teleportation, the harsh wall of cold had suddenly hit him in the face, making him gasp as his whole body stilled, not knowing what to do. He was only covered in the thin layer of clothes he wore around the most heathened parts of the house, where the temperature reached the adjustable levels of a normal, chilly day at Suna. Then, as his ninja reflex kicked in, he immediately stood his collar up, zipped the zip the highest he could know and hid his hands in the cross over his chest, though it was the very best he could do at such circumstances.

Such – meant the outskirts of Konoha, in the middle of a very nicely shining, snowy nowhere. He felt his cheeks, ears and nose already turning red at the sudden change of the temperature. And Minato was smiling. Of course, for such a bastard that was covered from head to toes in every possible clothing he could get it was easy to do so. Without a warning, the red haired man moved his one leg under the feet of the blond and tripped him over right onto the puffy frozen grounds.

'Cheese.' he said, smiling indeed, as he stomped over his chest, quite rudely, but that's how the payback worked, right? It wasn't like Minato warned him before he teleported them both 'Now get out of the coat or it will be cheese with handsome blond mashed into tiny pieces as a dessert.'

'Ah, more Suna poetry.' the blond chuckled evilly, catching the foot and heaving one of his own legs up and across the redhead's chest, landing him flat on the floor. 'I don't think I'll ever grow a taste for it.' He started getting up, seemed to think better about it, then smashed a handful of snow on the older man's face for good measure before quickly jumping away and walking to a dead tree a couple steps away. A moment later he produced a bag of heavier winter clothing he unceremoniously tossed the redhead. 'There you go master, unless you prefer to share body heat?'

What answered him was something between the 'rrroarghhh' stomped over by an elephant or a cry of a dragon from a very far, far away. As much of a ninja Daichi was he just couldn't really pass off being thrown fully onto the wet cold plate of freeze and knowing it better with every passing second. As the clothes landed on him he sprung into a sitting position, but then fell back like if he was about to lose consciousness.

'If that's your offer then come here, because it seems that my arse had already frozen to the ground.'

'Oh, sexy.' the blond purred, coming closer and fully expecting the other man to do something like roll him around in the snow in revenge, but at the same time knowing how much Daichi hated cold and letting him there was just mean. 'Come on, there's a lot of time till two in the morning and I can't have you made into a popsicle until then.'

'Too late.' said the man through his teeth. The only thing that moved was a hand that stood up in a clear sign of 'I need to grab onto something to stand up'. Or maybe 'this train is coming that way in a few seconds'. Both were quite possible from Daichi's perspective.

Giving him a look that clearly showed he wasn't believing his sudden feigned weakness, the blond daintily deposited his palm on the outstretched hand.

'Come on, it's not like you to be this delicate.' he said softly, eyes warming into a softer expression.

The other man's eyes on the other hand – sharpened quite a lot.

'And it's so unlike you to fall into such a simple trap.' he muttered with a smile. And then with a sharp pull, he pushed the blond onto the ground, making sure he landed on his face into the snow as he sat on his back with each knee on the every side. 'You're such a mean kage, Minato.' He purred as he bended down toward one of the ears 'I like your offer, though I'm not sure where it leads. Now excuse me…'

And with one swift move he removed his vest and tossed it at Minato's head so he couldn't see anything at all. When he finally took it off, he was already fully clothed in the new coat.

'Thoroughly soaked and frozen.' he muttered, looking at the icy frost that covered his cloth 'Oh, and I can take much more than you think.'

The blond let out a complaining huff- Daichi had never filled under the *thin* category, always having been rather bulkier and quite more heavily muscled than he himself was, despite their height difference- and solid muscle was a lot heavier than fat. He huffed some more to get the snow powder off his mouth and squirmed a bit to try and get the redhead off.

'And here I thought I was just a mean person… Guess I'll just have to try harder.' Once the redhead was dressed in the heavier winter gear he'd gotten for him, he looked definitely a lot more content, which made the expression of his face upon the teleportation all the funnier 'Let's start with me telling you you should consider a new diet. How come someone that eats the things you do can weight so much?'

The other man let out a light laughter, almost unhearable under the loud circumstances.

'I'll think about it.' he said as he folded his cloth slowly, to not break it across the lines where ice bit through the material 'But I guess there's not much I can do about my tra la la.'

'Don't bet your money on that, it's still early into the night, the blonde said good naturedly, getting up and dusting himself off the powdery snow. 'We have time, what do you want to do?'

The other man slowly stopped folding the piece of clothing and hid it inside one of his pockets. Then he looked at the blond as he walked closer.

'I'm not the one who took us here, Minato-kun.' he murmured lightly 'And those are not my grounds, so I guess you shouldn't really expect answer from me, should you, Minato-kun?' Though, to tell the truth, he didn't care. He could as well be surrounded by moon's cheese or the gold designed by mountain's dwarves and act completely the same. He could be here with the blonde, just like that, and even if it was painful enough to know it was not for much longer, it was a feeling that suited himself like the most comfortable piece of clothing he had ever had.

He looked at the blond man, noticing how the snow still glinted with bits between the blond strands and let out a little sigh. The filling of adoration filled him to the point it would make the slightest move of a pot to spill it over the edge. In silence, he reached for the man's hand and his it tightly between his two own hands as he gave it a sincere kiss. He'd propose training, but at such place he'd quickly fall on his back, exhausted. And he doubted that they really could go anywhere without being noticed by nervous ANBU and being caught red-handed.

The blond gave the other a look as he took his hand, blushing slightly at the gesture more out of embarrassment than anything else. These soft gestures kept surprising him and leaving him with the feeling he was doing too little and he wasn't doing it right, but he didn't know what was allowed for him to do in return. If it had been Kushina, he would have put a hand around her waist and brought her close, would have kissed her temple and down her throat until he found that ticklish spot and made her laugh- but Daichi wasn't Kushina, and he didn't want to treat him like he treated his wife.

He was used to being playful with the redhead, which suited his nature just fine, and it's not that he didn't want his affection, but sometimes the way Daichi looked at him now that all was done and said hurt him. It wasn't just nice, it was wonderful. It was so good it made him realize it was something that he could very easily come to want and need, something he wouldn't be able to just quit or give up easily. He'd have to learn about it. Learning to trust them –Jiraiya, Daichi, Kushina - hadn't come easily, either.

'I just want to spend time with you without having to watch what I say.' he said, smiling lightly and giving a tug to the hand the other hand to put him in movement. 'You should have told me that when one becomes Kage everyone suddenly starts treating you like if you were a glass slipper.'

He hadn't been this babied in his life as a ninja, not even as a genin.

'Oh, I'm sorry, that bit had just slipped through my memory… or had it.' said the redhead as he easily crept closer, only to catch the blond through his waist and hide behind him once again, so only his palms were visible on the front of the blond 'I guess for each kage their own treatment, because as far as I remember the life hadn't been any easier on me since I stopped being a mere genin…' With those words, the body of the older man had slowly relaxed, until he had lied his cheek against the back of the blonde and closed his eyes. It was so freaking cold still and heat radiating through thick layers of clothes barely covered for that, but he wouldn't change this situation for anything. It felt almost too peaceful.

'You know…' he murmured in a throaty tone, the one he used for his kids when they were so very, very young it was not embarrassing to sing them lullabies because he had the 101% of sure that none of them would remember it 'The non stopping crystal jorums filled with wine, the beds covered with petals of perfumed flowers…' He moved slowly his hands up and down, feeling the curves of a man in a lazy stroke in which he enjoyed the structure of bones of an old circus lion that came to his office once, along with the old thin man who travelled through the world, selling people attractions that were already more dull than the photographed memories made in his circus three decades ago.

The animal was lazy, indifferent and had no single tooth, as every ninja could see it but since little kids didn't care about it, he could as well stay the king of the jungle for the rest of his old days. When he stroked it it started gurgling in the resemblance of little cats purr, though it didn't sound as nice and pleasant, more like if it was suffering. The touch was still nice and Daichi enjoyed it in lazy strokes, as he listened to the old man's story. And now he felt a tug of that memory and he smiled at it as his hands traveled up, until they reached the chest of the blond and then down, in exactly same manner. It was such a fulfilling pleasure, to feel the real Minato beneath his fingers. He could stroke him like that for the whole night.

'And oh, the god damn caviar that somehow manages to find its way to your private freezer in the middle of very fish dry area, like a desert…' he muttered, then he carefully caught the zip of a vest and undid it in a quick move 'My life is so full of hardships, I envy you. Of the great glass slipper-sama.' And then he hid his hands inside the caverns of a vest. Much to be told, his uncovered hands felt more than freezing now, so as Minato's chest felt very warm to him, it was probably quite a different feeling for the blonde. And oh, he loved the words he heard on the beginning. If there was any rawer resemblance of trust he had heard from a highly stated person of the lands, he haven't heard them.

Minato's reaction at being cuddled from behind was squirming- actually squirming like a little boy who doesn't really want his old aunt to pinch his cheeks but who will suffer through it because it's not polite to run away. And he didn't even want to run away, he actually liked this, uncomfortably, anxiously liked it (or some part of him did. Parts of him with sharp teeth and demented smiles. Possibly with claws?) and he couldn't get over how easy it was. After all he'd done to get it and all the time he had tried not to think that Daichi existed… that he could get this, that Daichi wanted to give it to him- that it would be given in this manner, even. It seemed a little surreal.

Sometimes temptations are not… For the first time, he seemed to perceive that as much as he had pressed Daichi into trying to get him to admit to these feelings before, as much as he'd pushed and prodded and dug fingers in fresh wounds -not just because he could but because he wanted to- when Daichi had pressed back in return he'd just done… Well, nothing. It wasn't a positive notion at all. For the first time it occurred to him that if he hadn't gotten what he wanted when he wanted it, then who was to blame but himself for it?

The feeling of freezing hands on the thin shirt he wore under the vest made him jump out of such unpleasant ponderings and it was actually what he needed to stop making those not-quite conscious shows of discomfort. The feeling of freezing skin one on top of his own warm one and the other over the alien feeling of the dead tissue covering half of his chest.

'Sorry, the idea of eating unhatched fish eggs never really appealed to me.' he said casually enough.

Which didn't mean he never ate it, as Minato was the kind of person who would eat whatever was put in front of him without really caring what it really was or how vividly it was still squirming, as long as he was told it was remotely edible. Sure, he'd prefer chicken eggs before fish eggs… 'Are you done groping?' he pulled his arms back, lacing them around the redhead's back and squeezed. It was uncomfortable to do so, but for some reason it stuck him as funny and made him smile. 'Let's find a place with less wind and more firewood.'

In the answer the hands of the redhead turned into quite unpleasant clutches and moved away from his front. Then with one painful kick the blond once again could taste the white frozen stuff as the other man once again sat on his back freely.

'That's a very good idea.' he muttered, then smiled at the blond as he moved one of his cold fingers along the blond's cheek. It felt warm, soft and absolutely maleish as every man's cheeks skin turned quite harsh after a thousand of shaves. So, even his lovely little kouhai fell into it – the trap of adulthood. And it was so hard to tell from affair. 'Because I really was starting to wonder why were we sitting in the middle of icy grounds…'

The last two words were accented heavily with Suna's district language as he took a handful of snow and started dripping it on the said cheek in little pieces, mirroring the little snowstorm. He remembered seeing such angelic picture once in his life. The second one was not any worse by comparison. He bended over to lick the watered snow on the man's cheek. Watery. Such a waste.

'Lead the way, Hokage-sama.' and finally, he'd got up. As comfortable it was sitting on a warm Minato, it surely did nothing good for his backbone. And he was not such a bad person to let him remember the night for physical scars it could leave. He was not that bad after all.

'Well, maybe I was looking forward to a little body heat.' the blond replied after licking his lips free of powdered snow, wincing slightly at having frozen water licked off and being replaced but quickly freezing saliva. At least now he was sure Daichi really wasn't drinking more coffee. 'I guess I just forgot what a terrible circulation men your age have, Kazekage-sama, what a disappointment.'

Daichi had visibly winced at the said words – because he also wasn't – no, he really, really wasn't that old. Really. Seriously – but thankfully he was turned with his back toward the blond. It would be bad to show the man how badly the topic could touch him sometimes. As much as he ignored the thing for his whole life – when he was young, he was young, then he didn't have to care to be bold and beautiful for anyone as the only one he had ever cared about that way didn't even look at him through the glass of beauty and youth and then… well, after all that he simply didn't care.

Which didn't help the fact that every morning, when he turned the mirror to shave from the spiky red fungus that grew over his face since he hit his puberty he saw that his eyebags getting deeper and his hairline slowly receding. He knew that his mimical wrinkles were not getting any smaller and he saw the veins on his neck getting more and more obvious, like with every passing month the gods decided to just move over his neck with a crayon again and again, just to make it more visible.

And now, when he woke up the first day in his… better life, the look on his mirror suddenly pointed it out to him with raw starkedness and he wasn't prepared for that. Sure, Minato was neither the young god of the youth – he was not fifteen anymore either. But the first signs of adulthood had only showed up around his mouth from non stop smiling and around his eyes, for the same reason. In his opinion it only made him look more loveable. What if he wasn't the only one who thought like that? Even if he was clothed in warm coat now, he felt his insides slowly freezing along with his uncovered palms and feet.

'Oh, Minato-kun…' he muttered, looking at the snow in front of him with widely opened eyes as the truth suddenly hit him, so painfully breathtaking. Till now he hadn't even considered anyone to be close since there was Kushina, and it was safer to start sending love letters to shark than to Minato when she was near, but now… now, when she was gone…

He wasn't the only fish in the sea. And soon, very soon Minato once again will be left alone for a long time. And he won't be near to show that his kind also had sharp teeth. He slowly turned around. But with every inch, his face changed, so when he fully faced Minato, there was only his natural smug smile laying on it.

'I'm afraid that you don't really know what are you talking about. Should I show you really how my circulation works? Because it works fine, I assure you.'

He was unprepared for the longer-than needed bout of silence that came from the redhead, and for a moment he felt he'd done something wrong, only he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it could be, considering it wasn't anything out of the normal… Not that making lewd insinuations to Suna's Kazekage had been normal for a long time, but the teasing nature of their relationship had always been there, so… He couldn't think of having said anything wrong like that, but he was ready to apologize for whatever it had been, only Daichi turned around as if nothing had happened and worse yet, have him do that utterly despicable, arrogant curl of lips that passed as a smile on Sabaku no Daichi's face and that always made him want to smile back simply because it made weird things to his insides.

'Maybe in Suna, when the sun makes your blood all melty.' the blond said playfully as he undid his white over jacket. He couldn't believe the redhead was still cold even after he'd gone through the work of getting him the warmest, fur-lined clothing he could find, but on retrospective again, snow and large masses of water had never agreed with Daichi. 'Let's see how it work in here after we find some place to crash,' Walking to the redhead, he draped the fabric over his shoulders, then took off his gloves and gave them those as well. 'Let's go south, there's more places of use there.'

Daichi had only smiled in the response. The gloves were a bit too tight for his hands, but besides that they were fine, and even if it felt alien to have his hands strained like that, he didn't think he'd have to use his seals anyway. For a moment he closed his eyes, enjoying the new position he found himself in, taking the feeling of warm body into him (along with scent – it never really changed, even if Minato used many brands of Konoha's perfumes) and then his hand slowly snaked around the blonde's waist and stayed there.

Unconsciously he had also bumped together their legs and waists. But it was good. He felt Minato under his fingers. Knowing how the blonde could run it was a rather poor measurement, but it was always a bigger chance of grabbing onto him than standing two meters away from him.

'My blood works fine even in lower temperatures.' he muttered in a bit lower voice 'Unlike you, I'm a strong man who adapts to the changing seasons.' Which was not entirely true and if Minato could faint on the desert it could happen the same to him in this icy world. But as for now, he didn't really take notice – Minato's body was warm enough. He squeezed his hand on Minato's hips a little. 'After you.'

'Yes, of course.' the blond replied playfully. 'Just as well as you get your sea legs, I'm sure.' he was about to push the redhead away, but for some reason changed his mind midway through the motions and pulled him close around the waist as well, leaning down to nip as his neck not unlike what he had done when they'd been huddled in the tree while Shukaku rampaged dozens of feet beneath them.

'White and red suit you.' the younger man commented after he pulled away, smiling lightly at the redhead as if he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. 'Pity you are too short for it. Do try not to ruin my jacket through the ground, will you? I already sacrificed a perfectly good one for the sake of Hidden Sand and the current Bastard in Ruling.'

Satisfied with his last nag, he turned around and quickly made his way down to the growing mass of trees that signaled the beginning of the forest and more closed grounds to guard off the cold air.Daichi stood in the place for a moment or two, watching the blond retreating. The feel of his hair and body still lingered on his hands as he moved them through – even if the feeling was a bit muffled by the gloves he was wearing. The movement of being pulled close startled him, but only mildly. It was a pleasant experience and it felt sweet to see him respond to his caress - it only made him want to give more as he saw that Minato was actually responding the same way to what he did. With a cocky smile he had pulled the collar of the white-red coat and sniffed the brim of it.

'I'll stay with blue shades.' he muttered, but smiled through it.

Another thing he will have to resist stealing. In silence, he gathered a bit of the material so it wouldn't get wet in the snow and he followed the man. It was a bit strange that he was being led to the area that seemed to be grown with forest – he was more used to open territories for most of his life – but since he was being provide the blond's help, he could go in it as well. Especially as watching his back made it more and more tempting to actually get closer and check how his backbone bended in natural places by moving his fingers over it. He bit back the urge and followed, pleased, but only when he noted in the back of his mind that he would have to check it sometime later the idea finally left him. Sometimes brains were annoying like that.

He glanced sideways, noticing how black the trees seemed to be in the cold night's atmosphere – so different from the glinting grounds and hid his hands inside his classic crossing of the arms. The things he did for Minato. But if the blonde would ask him to venture here alone, he'd probably do it. He wondered if there were things he wouldn't consider doing if the object of his cravings would wish for that. Maybe beside letting him go. But that was a different matter. He glanced sideways again. He hoped that the journey would be worth the prize on the end of the rainbow.

'See, I told you it was around here!' Sure, he had said that about an hour ago and Daichi had ended up having to summon one of his tracker dogs to find the cabin, but considering the topic of discussion was whether or not the cabin did, in fact, exist, he thought he was the one who had won the argument.

He completely ignored the shivering redhead glaring at him while he praised and cuddled the colorful dog who had been suffering in the cold as much as his owner, if not more, and who unlike said owner was being very sweet and affectionate instead of glaring sullenly in his direction while he paid attention to something other than him. It's not like if he could help it, Minato was very much a dog person, and Suna's 'painted dogs' with their energetic nature, impossible coats and bird-like chirps of calling appealed to him like no other ninja animal ever had. It was only too bad you could only find and train them in Wind country.

'Even in the middle of all this snow you found it so fast, what a smart girl you are~!'

The dog had wuffed in response, obviously enjoying the coddling, but when she had leaned back too much to show how happy she was, she jumped back on all four, whining in a scared, pathetic tone. As much as trained she was, Suna dogs did not see much of a snow in their life. The young age didn't help here at all. At one glare of the Kazekage she had sat on her seat again, but it was not a nice experience to her at all.

'Minato-kun, as much as she enjoys you spoiling her young soldiery heart I don't think you should hold her up on this summer breeze much longer.' He muttered, looking at the animal. 'Right, Gygyoi?' The dog chirped at his voice, unsure about the command that was given. He smiled at it. 'I should command it to tear your throat for keeping us out on this weather for so long…' he murmured in a throaty tone. If anything, it sounded more like a compliment than a rebukement.

'Aw, but you wouldn't ask such a thing from such a cutie, right?' the blond rubbed his thumb in the spot between the dog's eyes for a moment, then scratched the short fur at the top of her head gently.

'Of course not. I wouldn't dare to.' Daichi rose one of his hands to his eyes, watching his fingernails in the moonlight. In the still happy face of the dog something had changed and a low throaty growl started to sound, even if she still kept on enjoying the caress. Daichi smiled under his nose. The funny part of it was the fact that you didn't even have to ask them for anything. Other than sticking his tongue out to the redhead, the blonde didn't give any sort of sign of notice the change in behavior, now tugging on one of the short ears.

'Just get into the cabin, Kazekage-sama.' The blond said with a smile. 'The last thing we need is for you to catch a real cold after all the pretended ones you had this month.'

It was only after saying that that he realized that yes… the redhead really had spent that much time over here after all. How strange… Their team had been hastily dissolved when news of the Third's disappearance had reached. Daichi had been installed as a sort of replacement-Kazekage until the Sandaime Kazekage could be found, only it never happened, and Daichi had had a very busy couple years trying to keep civilians and investors from leaving in a panic, advisors that –if they were anything like his own- wanted nothing more than for him to mess up so they could find someone more suiting and his own personal feelings on regards of the fact there was nothing to do but assume his sensei dead and stop the search parties.

'Ah, so you noticed I was acting. How awful to know that.' said Daichi as he unglued his back from the tree he was leaning on and moved closer to look at the pair. 'Seriously, I don't know who looks cuter here. You or my growling dog…' The redhead stood in silence for a moment, like if he was really wondering about the choice, then he smiled – more at the animal than the blond.

'I know that you want it.' he muttered as he leaned over and messed Minato's hair like if he was a nice species of a big dog 'Go get'im, girl.' And when he repeated the gesture over the dog, not only the growling had ceased, but so did the stance and the big body of an animal had suddenly jumped on Minato, licking him all over the face. Yes, she obviously wanted to return her joy toward the man. Daichi had only walked to the cabin laughing. 'Tell me when you have enough, I might show you my mercy.'

The blond was unceremoniously dumped to the ground as the deceivingly small body of the dog tackled him into a pile of snow.

'Ack wait- girl- Gygyoi…- Dai!' such energetic things, the dog was able to slobber all over him easily even thought he was holding the headband tied around her neck to keep her at bay. And this was looking more and more like a normal mission each and each moment… A whole month of Daichi in Konoha and he'd barely been able to see him, huh. Like back then…

He remembered that both him and Kushina had requested to go with the Hokage as personal guards so they could get into Suna. He'd been surprised to see how much the redhead had grown, and maybe a little relieved over the fact that after snubbing them publicly, Daichi had escaped his office and ran off to spend some time with them. It was good they had because the redhead had been incredibly busy afterwards.

Save from the letters the three of them sent around that had been the last he'd seen of Daichi until his wedding, and only because Sarutobi had made already public his decision to make Minato his successor so he might as well send him in his place to the wedding of a friend that was his to begin with. And after that… Well… They did a lot of things Kage's shouldn't do, like alter planned trips so they'd casually get into the same route, maybe bicker over minimal matters at summits because they could drag an extra day or two like that… And then Gaara and then… well… Almost six years passed since.

'And things are a mimic of then…' he mused out loud as he petted the dog back into a more calmed and lees tongue-bathing state. Only they were so different he wasn't sure how to deal with them anymore. Daichi stayed a month and he didn't talk to him other for just about two thousands days… A lot of time. A lot of time he didn't feel the weight of anymore. 'Hey, girl…' he pressed a hand to the left side of his chest, a small smile on his lips until he softened his voice enough 'Does this smell weird to you?'

The dog had only let out a smile unnerved squeal as it followed with its nose to his chest, then pushed at the spot to get under his hand. The longer span of sniffing showed that the animal felt something there – but Gygyoi had only licked the spot quickly and sat back, looking at him with an opened smiling face. If anything, the dog didn't look bothered by it – not at the point of seeing anything dangerous there. Daichi, who stood near at the door let out another short laugh and shook his head lightly. The blond stared at the animal for a moment, before finally breaking into a smile.

'You really are a good girl, aren't you?' his hand found another short ear, gave it an affectionate tug then resumed scratching the top of her head gently. 'But you are probably cold by now. Ask your owner to get you back home… and remind him to give you a treat later, you deserve it.'

The last part was directed to said owner who was still lurking by the door and who usually thought praising one's animal nin consisted on nodding to it regally. Now he felt bad for not having any sort of treat to give to the young dog.

'She will get one at home, I'm sure of it.' said the Kazekage as the dog barked at the word 'treat'. For a dog it surely understood a lot – that's why he liked her. Too bad that for experience and strength he'll have to wait for another couple of years. He nodded toward the huffing dog and smiled as it leaned down to lick on Minato's face once again. If he let her, she'd probably pin the man for the rest of the day – rarely anybody had time for such affections for her after all. 'But enough of spoiling, I want to play with my toy too.'

And with that, the seal was undone and the happy dog disappeared in a puff of smoke that smelled of barracks and dry desert air. With a wicked smile, the redhead glanced over the laying man and let his gaze linger at the sprawled figure, and then he vanished inside the cabin once again. There wasn't much to see there – it was just a plain shelter after all – but it certainly brought memories.

He remembered countless times as he was in such when he was out in missions, both in heat and cold. Living under the one roof alone was not bad, but when he had to stand both Minato and Kushina it turned pretty much into survival game. He couldn't count how many sleepless nights he spent outside his own room watching for the red-haired kunoichi to not try 'anything weird'. Not that she didn't try. Not that he didn't pay her back for that with his own doings. He smiled to himself.

'Nice palace. I suppose you built it yourself?'

Making some sort of childish noise at the lick and wiping at the wet spot with his sleeve he quickly jumped back to a standing position, shaking the loose snow off the folds on his clothing. His hand lingering a moment more over the left side of his chest, brushing barely against the vest. So, normal animals didn't think anything of it, huh? As a child Naruto also had had it, always calming down faster and clinging to him when he was cradled against that side of his chest. Shukaku had noticed it right away too, and Gaara… had Gaara?

The redhead's voice shook him out of those musings, reminding him that Daichi was there for him after all.

'I actually had to fix it after breaking it accidentally a few years back.' he said as he picked some wood from outside, pushed the redhead with his shoulder as obviously as possible and made a show out of preparing the fire. The other man had only rose his eyebrows in a surprise. He didn't expect for it to be really fixed by the blond – after all, the only people who made their shelters by their own hands were people from Sand and Ice.

'That's nice.' he said, looking around. He didn't really pick any outstanding changes, but it was probably because the new wood had melted with the old one already. With such weather in this place of the world everything changed quickly. 'Do you need help with that?'

He didn't say anything about what had actually happened a few years ago. He remembered it, Minato did also for sure… heck, whole world did. There was no use in tearing the old wounds without any obvious need.

'You know I can do it quickly.' he muttered as he had came closer and stared at the pile of wood. It was only an empty sentence, because he was no better than average ninja with that and his fire element was actually far, far behind the Uchihas, but he was cold and his patience spoke easily for him – even at the cost of burning his own still fingers.

'It wasn't that nice, I actually broke my hand.' the blond said with a little chuckle. 'I was trying to complete a technique that didn't want to get completed.' A pause. 'It still doesn't want to.' As usual, Minato had problems telling what was wrong with a technique, but now why. It frustrated him to no end that he still couldn't tell what was missing to make it work right. Seven years of trying and he still couldn't. The comment about the fire had him laughing.

'Kages, Daichi, can't you wait ten more seconds?' he turned around to stare at –in his personal opinion- the overdressed Kazekage… Who, to tell the truth, did look rather nice with the white coat and red edges. He'd never thought blue to agree with the redhead's complexion. Too much cool a color when there had never been anything cold about the redhead's character. 'It's not the end of the world, you didn't hear me complain when you had the brilliant idea of going to train in the middle of a chasm in the middle of freaking midday.'

He would have added 'in the middle of freaking June', but actually June was one of the tamest month as far as Suna weather went, so if anything, Daichi would call him a weakling for saying it. He'd only been during the so called 'Dog Days' in Suna once in his life. He personally felt it was one time too many. Which was a wonder, considering he didn't remember much of it besides Chiyo mocking him constantly as she made him swallow stuff that he was sure had not meant to be consumed by humans and thinking there was no way this basement was the coolest place in the house because it was still hotter than right under the sun on a normal day.

Just thinking about it made his skin feel a little clammy and his stomach a little less than agreeable; and he was immensely grateful for the cool atmosphere around him.

'There should be a few blankets around,' he told the redhead as he started the fire. 'Nothing really fit for a Kazekage, of course, but they'll have to do.'

'I'm not complaining. When did you hear me whine?' muttered Daichi as he looked back at the blond, then back to the fire again. It started slowly, so very slowly and it was so small that even if he had pushed over Minato there still wouldn't be enough warmth to even melt his chilly fingers. He looked back at the blonde again with a quizzical face.

'You're such a good host, Minato-kun. Old rugs for his excellence Kazekage from Suna.' he muttered in his sophisticated tone he had learned long ago from the old speech his master used when he wanted to sound pompous. And he always did, he did an art from looking like an old man with class. He was about to stand up in search for the blankets, but then he had stopped. Minato had his jawline uncovered and he was now in such a stance that his back was all in the open, not suspecting anything. Quietly, he took off one of the borrowed gloves and leaned over to touch with the cold fingers the tender skin on the blonde's neck, only to move it quickly along the backbone, until the very end of his pants… well, maybe a bit behind that line.

'I'll be right back.' he whispered into his ear and stood up, feeling a bit giddy. The touch felt very nice – Minato really did have a nice back, even if at this stance he couldn't really tell the curves of every bone.

'Sorry your highness, I'm afraid the gold-embroider ones were left with the children, and I didn't want to force you to unpa-' the last part of the word came out as a startled gasp, because used to the cold as he could be, his skin was very warm under the clothes and Daichi's hand with its horribly, elderly circulation made him nearly jump out of it. The blond was left glaring at the redhead, his cheeks blushing slightly at what the other had done. 'I'm starting to think I might be more in need of an escort in your company than you needed one for mine.'

…he'd have to remedy that situation.

'I'm so sorry, Hokage-sama, did I scare you?' sounded out from another side of the house. 'I didn't meant to. Hear my apologies.' But the smug tone of Daichi's voice clearly said that he was anything but sorry. Even if Minato didn't like it, his lightly blushing face was a view worth seeing – he looked at least ten years younger thanks to that and thus – almost like a sweet little kid he was years ago. Framed in an adult jaw and body t made him look almost like a one of a kind, but enjoyable being.

The redhead scooped up some blankets – all covered in dust and dusted it down in a few quick moves. He had to open the door for that, but at least he had something else to treat his feet with – that part of the body suffered the most in the touch with cold grounds when he wore shoes that had uncovered toes. He came back to the place near the pile of wood and threw one over the blond's head. 'Here. Know my good-humouredness.'

The blond didn't look very amused, but he did arrange the blanket so it was almost-but-not-quite draped about his shoulders and waited for the redhead to sit down. Watched him suffer at the contact of the cold ground with a happy smile for a few moment, then finally reached for him and with a little grunt heaved the mass of muscled and overdressed redhead into his lap. Maybe not very dignified, but he did know how much Daichi suffered in the cold, and it wasn't like if this was a rarity among them, even years ago when Kushina had been in the group. Only with Kushina there it had been a lot funnier to get the redhead to settle down.

'Apology accepted.' he said, wrapping his arms around the other's chest and pulling him closer. Daichi's eyes had widened quite visibly at the unexpected gesture – sure, he was not having the happiest time on the world near the fire that was only starting and would probably make everything warm only in a few minutes, but he wasn't expecting to be… cuddled like that. Sure, he had a few dreams when he could hug the blonde and be hugged back, not mentioning a few vivid hallucinations that tempted him with nothing else but that, but now… It felt completely different now.

Probably because he barely felt anything through all clothes he had on himself and now he regretted having such a low tolerance for cold. It also made him immune to touch. But at least he had his hands free.

'You're such a good majesty.' he murmured with a light smile and caught both of the hands and entwined them both with his own fingers. They felt warm and it almost felt like if he caught the sunshine in his hands. It almost felt true when he leaned back and looked at the blond strands. 'So good…'

Minato's neck also felt warm under his lips as he kissed it gently. He loved the man so much it felt almost impossible he didn't just snatch him and kidnap him to his village at first possible occasion. Because being close to him felt like heaven and he couldn't imagine touching it and leaving it for endless stream of days again. But that would be egoistic. Wouldn't it? So he had only squeezed his hands and turned back to stare into the fire. But if someone would touch him… if anyone… He didn't know what he would do. But it wouldn't be pretty.

Yes, definitely different without Kushina and Daichi jamming elbows and knees and squirming like overexcited puppies around until they found a position they considered was Minato being shared fairly (which apparently was a very elusive position they only ever found if they were extremely cold or extremely tired).

'Yep, that's me, such a nice, gentle person I am…' He nuzzled against the other's nape as it was so nicely offered to him by the movement, feeling a longish scar with his lips as he did so. The redhead's eyes closed at the feeling and opened a bit glazed over. It was such a nice tender caress, but it also touched the ends of his nerves where it was fragile and that quickened his heartbeat a bit. It was good. It made his circulation go a bit faster so his chilly fingers and toes warmed up equally. 'That you are, Minato-kun…' he murmured as he rose his hand and moved it slowly over the blonde mass of hair and slowly moved it over the blond's face and cheek in a light petting. Then he pushed at the head enough to turn it to himself 'But it seems that some nasty thoughts are hiding there as well.'

He looked at the blue eyes in the close up, not feeling any bits intimidated by the closeness – though at the such close perspective he could barely distinguish each of the parts of the face. That didn't stop him from catching the mouth and tasting it. That was great. He felt his fingers getting warmed up enough and it wasn't thanks to the blankets and fire alone. But because the position wasn't very comfortable, he let go of the blond quite quickly.

'I could get used to that.' he murmured thoughtfully. He really could. And then he would become addicted and then… He smiled. Nah, he was already addicted. Minato kissed the other back lightly, not deepening or hurrying the kiss and smiled when the older man pulled away. How like Daichi to know him so well. Everyone always seemed to think that Minato was a good person, that gentleness was just something installed in his nature when it had been completely the other way around.

It's not that he wasn't capable of gentleness, of being nice without reason, because he could, and often did. But he was also very capable, so much more inclined to being nasty. His nature was just better fit for cruelty and he used it to protect and keep what he considered his close. And even knowing this, being so completely aware of these facts after knowing him for so many years… _Why do you want me? _

Kushina and Daichi, wanting him, fighting over him no matter what things he did, what cruel things he could say or how arbitrarily he played with their feelings, and it didn't make sense and it ruined (clobbered, ripped, destroyed, oh) everything he'd ever been taught or thought he understood. Why would anyone who really knew what he was like want him? Why would people do something as stupid as to drink from a bottle just because it told you so? Drink me the bottle read and it might as well have contained poison and yet they still would. Drink me, eat me Not asking, not suggestion, plain orders that some people, for no reason, no reason at all would follow.

'Could you…?' he pulled the redhead closer, pressing his face against the other's back and closing his eyes. When he spoke again his voice was really indecipherable. 'Sometimes I really wish I knew how to be nice to you.'

The redhead looked for a moment to the side, as to look at his back he'd have to have eyes on his neck, and then turned over to the fire which had burned quite vividly now. The dancing orange flames mirrored in his eyes like in the transparent window.

'Just be.' he murmured just as quietly, as if anyone could overhear their talking. The hands he held felt more firm now as his own has warmed up. He squeezed them – not as much to make it hurt but not light also – just enough to signal that he was there. 'Just be.'

He really didn't need anything else. Minato stared back at the redhead, blue eyes turned almost gray by the warm light of the fire. There was silence for a few seconds, as if he were thinking over what the redhead said, before finally managing to tear his eyes away, closing them quickly for extra measure.

'I can try.' the blond chuckled, the sound warm and slightly husky in the otherwise silent night. '…I will. But you know, Daichi-kun… ' one of the hand he held around the other left its spot and the redhead was pushed down with the other one, toppling from the blonde's lap and onto his back on the floor, the younger man quickly moving over him. 'I might not be very good at it.'

And just like that he leaned down and nipped at the redhead's lower lip. The redhead stared at him for the first second completely dumbstruck and it wasn't far from the truth. Suddenly, from the almost lulling atmosphere of the sweet cuddling he was suddenly pushed onto the floor to…

…it was actually pretty obvious that he was not supposed to admire the ceiling. He closed his eyes and let out a throaty sound of enjoyment, letting Minato master his new kissing skills (which were pretty good by the way, though for the wildness of it he missed a bit the possibility to mess up there on his own. Instead, he gave back the playful nib at the upper lip of the blond). But at the same time his own hands raked from the floor to Minato's bottom and felt the strong muscles of his thighs, bottom and back.

'You'd better try.' he murmured as he felt the bones of the blond through his vest 'Because if you won't I might become sad…' With one strong grip on the green vest, he moved his legs and with one strong push, he rolled them over. Sure, they were now further away from the fire and the floor was not so nice without one of his blankets that stayed there, but the perspective… Felt familiar. Déjà vu, anyone?

He leaned over, smiling viciously, until their lips almost brushed.

'And it's Daichi-senpai.' he muttered in a low, modulated tone 'You wouldn't want to make your senpai sad, right, Minato-kun?' The last word rolled over his tongue like if it was made of black treacle. With gentle move he brushed the corny hair and leaned over into the kiss, teasing the blonde with his tongue against his teeth and lips. He didn't close his eyes then, though even if he saw the blue eyes he barely knew he did as he was lost in the feeling. He was not prepared for that but was he ever prepared for anything when it came for Minato? He just had to grab when it was there because in the past when the eyes looked at him with insecurity, he didn't dare to respond.

Because sometimes, Minato had such a strange look, a look of a lost man. He wasn't sure what was it supposed to mean, but he wanted to lead him out of that space. Because he loved him. For what he was and for not what he was supposed to be, because of what he didn't become and despite what had came into. He didn't know if he could offer guidance as he was pretty unsure where he was standing himself (it started to clear out only lately but he still had a long way to go) but he knew that he could at least try to protect the man from anything that kept on haunting him. And seeing how many layers of faces Minato had, it must've been quite a lot.

He blinked and ended the kiss, only to lick at the tender vein on the left side of the neck. He was experienced in this. He really was. But when it came to that he really didn't know what buttons to expect from the blonde. He was different than everyone else… since ever.

There was a little startled sound from the blonde as strong hands were suddenly cupping his ass, and it was due that momentary distraction Daichi got the upper hand and rolled them around so he was at the bottom. Well, that had been unexpected. He stared up at the redhead, his expression dissolving into a small smile as he closed his eyes, the intensity of the dark eyes staring at him making him feel overexposed despite the fact he was still fully clothed. He leaned into the kiss, fingers brushing against the older man's cheek and sliding into the short red strands, tugging gently.

'I thought I wasn't supposed to be your kouhai anymore…?'

His head titled to the side trustingly, the silver link and cylinders circling his neck clinking softly in response to the movement. His other hand ran lightly over the thick shirt the redhead was wearing, and aware of how wasted the movement would be against the packed material, he moved it lower and slid it under the edge of it, stroking the redhead's spine and upwards.

'That's technically speaking.' murmured the redhead against the neck. He felt the juncture point and the steady beating of the heart. He kissed it, at first tenderly, then a little more aggressively. A good spot to leave a mark 'But we're not in the politic right now, Minato-kun.'

He rose his head to smile at the blond and actually show him the smugness he felt, but somewhere in the middle he had stopped, startled. Minato had put his hand under his shirt and… moved along his backbone. It wouldn't be anything strange since he had already felt many hands on it, both the lovers as well as enemies and it was never anything special. Nice, but anything special.

But then he didn't have his back tattooed. Now it felt like if colonies of ants had woken up and started moving under his skin – not the acid ones, but normal, disarmed ones. It felt like if his back had suddenly became a big ear and Minato's hand had blew an air to it. He shivered and closed his eyes. At the same time his own hands had moved lazily in search for the opening for a bare skin, and they found it.

Under Minato's vest there was this nice unprotected space where he could go as well… north and south. For a moment he pushed his hand south until he felt the soft hair brushing against his fingers and then he backed to the upper part of the body. Navel felt very tempting, so he moved his hand over it, making sure one of his fingers leaned in for a moment.

'My, my, Minato-kun…' he said with a smile upon his lips 'Can it be that you've been training? Because I'm feeling up something really nice here. ' Indeed, he didn't expect the abdomen to be so well built. Minato made another faintly amused sound, noting it was a good thing he favored turtlenecks because it seemed as if Daichi was decided to start leaving marks on his throat. Despite having his eyes still closed, he smiled faintly when he perceived the other's stillness, guessing the reason right away. He was about to do something about it, but then the redhead found some sort of opening in the shirt he wore under the vest and he stilled. Being touched there by someone else after so long made something close to his stomach and that felt to be wrapped around his spine fold and squirm- he frowned a bit the hands moved higher instead, this wasn't how he wanted things to go, was it?

'Well, I'm as old as you were three years ago, Daichi-kun. If I want to keep my shape I have to try a bit harder than I used to.' Right. Because once upon a time a big bad thing with big red eyes and big, big teeth and made of poison and fire decided to drop on them and show him that as strong as he'd been back then, as assured, as trusting- it hadn't been enough. And even with The Fox gone there was Naruto, a baby he'd first feared and then a baby he'd feared for. And a Village worth of people who didn't understand how he'd saved them and just wanted him dead.

Laughing softly against the other's skin, the blonde removed the hand he had on the other's hair and unzipped his own vest, leaning in to nuzzle at the redhead's chest as he did the same to what the other was wearing. Much better. Now it was easier to move his hand over the other's back.

'…still hurts?' his hand moved over the skin, guessing where the marks extended by the slightly slicker feel of the healing cream the redhead was still using to cover the still recent work. 'It's good to see you are taking good care of them, Kazekage-sama.'

Full of seals and sigils and things only he could control… Smile turning into a smirk, he gathered a tiny fraction of chakra and pressed two of them to the one at the base of his nape, not activating the net as much as using the core of it to distribute his own on the redhead. There. Now he'd like to see Daichi complain about the cold.

The other man at first had leaned over to steal another kiss from his lips, but at the first brush he had stopped and closed his eyes. Now that – that's wasn't a thing he had expected to feel. Not at all. And especially not from there.

'Oh… ohhh, Minato…' he breathed out, then let out a sound rich with contentment as he had licked the spot just below the lower lip and suddenly flexed all of his muscles in stretching manner, making his whole body sit up from the laying position. If anyone would have looked over, the feeling of seeing the overdressed Kazekage just getting up from a nicely done nap would be hard to push away.

'Oh yes, that's what I like.' he had almost purred as the white-red coat of a Hokage had been removed from the arms of the man, along with the blonde's gloves. 'Spoil me more with such temperature…' He smiled lasciviously at the man underneath him and opened one of his, completely warmed up hand and licked it over with his tongue. His back kept on resonating with waves of warmth (if he would only turn around he would also notice a small violet light, but he didn't do that), induced with the blonde's chakra. He had taken it in, simply out of curiosity and he loved the results. Up until now he was like a reptile – only waking up slowly to abysmal warmth, but after that…

Oh, it felt like if his stamina had suddenly doubled twice. No, thrice. He was back into the action.

'Prepare.' he murmured as he ended up wetting his hand and leaned over to roll the blond's sweater up and finally seeing the nice skin. Oh yes. Minato had a very surprising good belly. Without thinking twice, he moved closer and kissed the naked skin, also making his licked hand move over it lightly, only to lay it down finally when he touched the edge of the blond's pants. This time his hand didn't stop at the first contact of the pubes. 'You're warm.' he breathed and licked the navel. Yes, He liked also that kind of warmth.

The noise the Hokage made at the redhead's words would be hard to describe as anything but a giggle -if man aged twenty seven were to giggle, that is- not quite high-pitched as much childishly delighted. He really couldn't help it, if there was one thing he would have never, ever in his life expected, was that Sabaku no Daichi, Yondaime Kazekage of Hidden Sand would melt on his lap and stretch like a contented cat who was being scratched the right way.

Not over something as simple as the little bit of chakra he was using, much less this sort of expression –everyone always compared Daichi's glare to that of a hawk, and he'd have to agree with them that when the redhead was particularly pissed it was hard to think of things that fed on raw meat and were quite capable of tearing out limbs regardless of if you decided to fight them or not… But the truth was that to Minato, Daichi had always sort of looked like a cat.

It was the eyebrows, he decided. Daichi had always had really thin, delicate eyebrows that would make anyone think he plucked them – which he didn't- but the fact they were so small and sort of round as they centered on his brow always had him wanting to stroke them like he would do a feline. It was just too funny that his older son had decided to wear a cap that resembled so much a hello kitty's hat, especially considering how much Kankuro looked like his father. And now, with the Kazekage practically meowing content on his lap, the blond couldn't help thinking all that was missing was for the redhead to grow some claws and start kneading him some.

He squirmed a bit at the way the redhead's tongue felt against his stomach, the warmed up skin touching again… and it was at that moment that Minato decided that he didn't want that.

'Dai…' his voice was still halfway caught amidst laughter, and his hand reached down to grip the short stands, tugging gently at the other's hair gently. 'Come here.'

The redhead obediently looked back at him, but didn't change his position.

'What's wrong?...' he asked in a tone that suggested that he was still in a slightly different dimension. If anything, his glazed over eyes spoke quite vividly for that. The blond was still staring at him with that warm, affectionate expression as he tugged again, a bit harder.

'Come here, idiot.'

Daichi had frowned lightly, still confused about the sudden favor, but finally had pulled his hand out from Minato's pants and crawled over the man until their faces were on the same level. He didn't know what could be important now, but his ninja side knew better than to argue when it came to unexpected things. He blinked and shook off some of the heat, but the quickened breath had still stayed.

'What is it?' he muttered finally, glancing all over the blond's face. It was so… so pretty. Not handsome. Only pretty. Especially his eyes. They had this amazing color of the sky in the middle of the Suna's day. He wanted to kiss it again but stopped himself. The need for the answer won. The blond smiled more at the face the older man made, apparently oblivious to the other's worries because once he had him close he leaned up, fingers stroking the scalp as he pressed his lips against the other a few times.

'I want to touch you.' he murmured against the redhead's lips, the hand he moved again under the other's shirt stroking down in a line and pushing the other's body into his. He casually slipped one of his tights slipped between the redhead's. '…can I?'

Daichi's eyes had closed in a pleasure as he was kissed and kissed back. He wasn't used to Minato kissing him, it felt like something he could practice for hours. Especially as bliss didn't count in minutes when it came to time. It was countless.

'Touch me.' he responded to the plea only lightly aware of what he was agreeing to. He just wanted to touch the blond over at every possible place and he wouldn't mind if Minato would do the same. That's how it went in the intimate moments between the pair. His legs had squeezed a bit as the knee was put between them – his only semi-hard cock had reacted to the pressure eagerly, hardening a bit. His hands had relaxed and ventured down the blonde's body again in search for the warm skin. He smiled a little. 'I'll touch back.'

The blond's smile turned into a smirk against the redhead's lips, eyes opening to small slits of blue.


	34. Chapter Thirty Four: Bad romance

Minato's hand moved from the other's back and over the other's waist, feeling the lack of curves and the awkwardly satiny skin covering muscles.

'Don't.' he purred, his tight moving slightly against the hardening member. A part of him felt the absurdity of the situation and wanted nothing more than pinch itself over the fact last time anything remotely like this had happened Daichi hadn't spoken to him of years. Only now he wasn't allowed to escape. 'I just want to touch you.'

The hands of the redhead had ceased their search as the man had opened his eyes and stared into the blond's blue ones in confusion. What was the blond talking about? It felt a little strange coming from him as he had never showed that he was out for solo actions. Okay, maybe he did. But not in sex. That's what he thought.

Actually, when he thought of it, he saw that he had no damn idea what was Minato like in bed. All his knowledge was coming from his imagination only. He bit on his lower lip, a bit from confusion, a bit from the sexual tension and leaned lightly to breath more over his cheek than his mouth.

'But I want to touch you.' he whispered. He did. Gods only knew from how long now. Minato didn't know if to groan, moan, growl or just laugh at what the redhead said. He didn't know if the redhead did it on purpose, but he definitely wasn't healthy as much as his male ego was involved.

'I know.' he turned his head lightly to nuzzle the redhead's jaw, using his tongue to trail a small path he promptly nipped afterwards. 'But please don't. I'd rather touch you.'

Daichi blinked and frowned a little more. It felt a bit… strange, as far as his experience went – usually there wasn't a single soul who wanted a partner who just laid there and did nothing. Mute trunks' were not a desirable objects through the community of sexual appeals. But Minato was always a bit stranger than others and maybe that was what he needed to do to get to know him or… something. He didn't know. He wasn't sure. But he was curious. And that made him slowly move his hands up and intertwine them around the safe area somewhere under the shoulder blades and not far from the blond's hips.

'Be my guest.' he murmured, looking into the blue eyes with an interest. He had almost said 'have fun', but something had stopped him from doing that. Instead, he had only smiled as he always did when he had welcomed the political newcomers to his house. 'My treat.'

Minato kept smiling calmly as the redhead thought over his proposition, not doubting for a moment he would agree. He was asking for it, so Daichi wouldn't feel threatened by the proposition, but what was probably the deciding factor was that he did want to touch Daichi, very much.

'How generous.' the blond murmured, leaning to nuzzle the muscles of the man's neck and shoulders as he loosened the shirt further. 'You are so good to me, Kazekage-sama, you almost make me feel like if I don't really deserve it.' And he knew, he knew he didn't deserve the way Daichi felt for him, but he also didn't have any more of an intention to give the redhead up than ten years ago. His hands touched again the other's waist, then slid over the redhead's stomach and chest curiously, a little part of himself thinking that no matter how much he trained, he'd never manage to obtain this sort of muscle definition.

'It's funny.' he said 'Sandaime-sama couldn't have looked more delicate if he'd tried, are you really sure he had you do exact same things he had to go through to get the hat?' He hadn't exactly had much contact with Daichi's sensei, largely because the man disliked him and Minato was smart enough to stay out of his sight as often as possible so he wouldn't give him a reason to make him tell Daichi not to talk to him anymore. But that didn't mean he wasn't a bit horrified at the things he considered to be torture and Daichi calmly referred to as 'warming exercises' 'I don't know why, I feel he might have lied and made you go a little further.'

They needed to be thankful for the results, though. Whatever had happened to the Sandaime didn't matter, but he was still gone, and Daichi was still there, and if he had survived six years of a murderous demon he had barely any control of and an open confrontation against an enraged bijuu with barely a scratch, it was because his sensei hadn't gone easy on him. He liked- no, he loved that. He loved that he could trust Daichi not to disappear on him from one day to the other. Smiling to himself lightly, he set to see if he could find other places that weren't on Daichi's back and that could make him make those nice, impossible noises he'd so easily become addicted to.

'Leopard skin would clash with your hair.' and probably make him look very funny while at it, he thought as he stroked the short, saffron colored stands. It was uncomfortable to have to always crane one's neck to be able to reach the redhead correctly, but the floor was cold, even through the layers of clothing and he knew Daichi wouldn't like that at all, so he bear with it. When he got a kink on his shoulder or neck, he'd just have to call it Daichi jr. and suffer until it was gone.

'Poor Dai.' he purred teasingly, his hands going up the redhead's chest, brushing the other's nipples with his nails when he did so and smiling at the reaction. 'I know you never seem to be able to look past your gigantic mancrush on your sensei, but I think you are a better Kazekage than Sandaime-sama was.'

Not that he thought Daichi would ever believe that sort of thing, but he had single-handedly managed to get Suna out of the worst political and economical crisis there ever had been in the Village's history with a war going on somehow managing to keep the minimal number of Shinobi needed to keep the village save and all of that, if the rumors were to be believed, with a budget that seemed to be more of a joke than reality.

Daichi had gone so far as to try to deal with a demon, messed up royally, and yet somehow survived the ordeal with most of his village and its security… relatively intact. He doubted any person less stubborn and hardworking than Daichi would have managed that.

Daichi's response was only a smile, accompanied with hiss through his tightly shut teeth. What Minato did was pretty sadistic now, but who could blame him? He was probably now so used to the cold temperature he didn't even think it was possible. Daichi, as the man of hot lands, sadly didn't have such a quick adjustment granted. And while being outside only in the light clothes at first, his skin had tightened in thousands of goose bumps; in the results, also his nipples had tightened – to the point they actually did hurt.

So far he ignored the lightly stingy pain that came from every brush his shirt made against his chest (it was slowly getting away as his skin warmed up enough, but it still seemed like if it was staying far behind his body's reactions) and even forgot about them as his shirt freed his chest out of the touches, but when Minato's hand brushed against them… And he used nails. That actually did hurt.

He finally managed to breathe again and slow his breathing from the quick inhales that his body took after sudden shots of pain and looked back at the blonde. What was that he said?... He wasn't sure what he heard as the sensation had attacked him. Something about the Third. They were on the popularity poll's topic again? He was sure that he heard 'poor Daichi' at the beginning. He swallowed the remaining saliva in his mouth.

'The Third is the best Kazekage in the history. He had made the Iron World.' he answered, truly believing in what he said. Sure, what he did was also kind of heroic, but it was all made during blind choices as he had no idea about ruling the country. The Third had vanished before he got to teach him anything. And Iron World… Nothing could compare to Iron World. It made profession of a puppeteer useless. For him, who lived around the people whose fifty percent at least were puppeteers without second profession that was something.

The blond sighed resignedly at such an answer.

'Ah, yes, do forgive.' he muttered as he put his hand around the redhead's waist, pulling him a little higher up so he could lick at what had made the redhead do that really interesting sound that had seemed to go straight to his groin. No, it hadn't exactly sounded pleased, but it had been exiting nonetheless. He was curious what would happen if he tried to soothe it with his tongue. 'I forgot I was trying to speak to the head of his fan club.'

For added incentive, his hand moved low, scraping lightly that spot that could make the redhead whimper if touched right. The redhead let the blond pull him up, though he had to help this position by pushing against the floor with one of his hands – otherwise he'd just topple over the man and most likely suffocate him (a bit). 'You-' he started, wanting to actually ask what was the purpose of this pose, but the sentence died at his throat as he felt something warm and wet trailing his nipples. Licking. Minato was licking his most fragile points at the upper front of his body.

And that was actually even worse than just scrapping with nails. Even if the warmth of tongue sounded relieving, the sole touch made them tighten even more, which made them noticeable in his nervous system and when the blonde moved back at least for a moment, he felt the saliva immediately dropping the temperature, and when the temperature dropped… Hurt. It hurt in unpleasant way.

He bit back a groan of pain, but allowed himself to show his displeasure on his face as the blonde couldn't see him and propped himself on his hand to go up and actually move away from the petting mouth (if someone was a masochist. He wasn't). But then Minato went again to this stupid spot where an enemy dared to expose his weak spots to the world much enough for the place to be fragile for any kind of caressing. Now that was…. Was… no. Please, not right now… Oh, yes. Yes. No. Yes.

…damn it.

Maybe he was a masochist after all. He was about to start arguing with himself on that, but then Minato's hand had slipped a bit and the specially hardened impulse had ran through his nervous system. This time it was more unpleasant than pleasant. And it was so different that it made his hand buckle for a moment and move his chest back and forth. He felt one for his nipples scrapping lightly the skin – probably of Minato's cheek as it had the very subtle stubble and…

Oh yes, he remembered. That's how nipples felt when you fell down the hill and cleared the earth straight with your chest and stomach. One would wonder how could this feel so bad when he didn't even hurt them. He let out a pathetic whimper. Winter surely was not a good season for him. Back in Suna he had never really got such sensations even on the cold nights.

Slowly, he moved his free hand over the blonde strand's and stroked them shakily for a moment or two, like if he couldn't decide what to do. Wouldn't it feel rude if he said that Minato, well… failed at this moment? He knew he himself would feel hurt. But then he felt the accidental scrape of something harder against the nipple and all thoughts went flying through the window.

Screw that. If Minato would start to bite he'd probably start crying. There were no possible ways to train your freaking nipples and it showed in the pain – it was so straight to the point it made the eyes teary, no matter who the owner was in private life. He caught the blond hair that reminded him of sunshine sometimes and immediately crushed their mouths together. There. A distraction. A breather from all this. And he didn't even have to explain himself. (he swore he heard moon laughing at him. Yeah, well, screw it too.)

It would be hard to determine who was luckier the redhead showed so openly how uncomfortable this sort of manipulation made him feel. Because the blond couldn't help feeling thrilled at the minimal responses the redhead made, not to mention the sounds. he liked them. Very, very much, as much as the pleasured ones the redhead could make, even.

And he was perfectly willing to get a little rougher if that got him more of a reaction. He was actually going to start nipping- biting even, if that's what it took- when Daichi finally had more than he could handle and he finally yanked him up, kissing him hard. He moaned lightly against the other's lips, his own tongue moving slowly against the redhead's as he pressed a little harder against the scarred tissue.

'I'm sorry, Dai.' he finally said against the redhead's lips, adjusting him in his lap better. He didn't explain why he was apologizing, but he did nonetheless, His hand moving from the sensible area he'd been teasing to stroke the redhead over his pants. His other hand went again to the other's nape and stroked the seal lightly, infusing again a small dose of his chakra to help the other relax. 'Better?'

Daichi looked at him a little dazedly, breathing the air that was breathed into him through their both mouths. This moment had something sweet – just about to being lost into pleasure of kiss and yet, still one step too far away… He felt the warmth seething into his back, it made his blood run faster and his insides warmer.

'Minato…' he started, but then the long closed in the back of his mind sense that kept on nagging him from some time had pushed through. Better?... What 'better'? Why was this sounding from the man's mouth?... Almost like if he was trying to sooth the pain he knew about.

Of course he was. He knew to begin with. The red light had lit up in his head, he felt the breath of the predatory animal upon his neck. In normal situation of danger he would jump out from the source of such ambivalent feelings, but here… He was too lost in the blue gaze to even consider breaking the contact. So he pushed the feelings of danger like one pushes a canopy and nodded. A thin, firm line of thrill that had always accompanied him in such circumstances, it up on their place. He nodded, brushing their lips together.

Gods, the blond had beautiful voice when he moaned like the moments before. Unconsciously, he moved his hands back from the neck and down, until he found the opening between the shirt and pants and pushed his hands under to touch the muscles of abdomen and man's chest itself. He wanted to get even closer.

Minato thought about telling the redhead to stop what he was doing as he had quite clearly told him before he didn't want to be touched, but Daichi wasn't really doing anything too outrageous to really make him complain. Mostly he was just running his hand over the massive burn scar over half of his torso, and while he could tell he was being touched by the feeling of the tissue under what had been damaged, he didn't really feel it. It felt pretty much exactly like if he'd been stroked over his clothing.

'Dai…'

He was about to remind the redhead about what he'd promised anyway, but when he looked up Daichi was staring at him that way again, that odd sort of look that made the spot between his stomach and chest twist uneasily and kept him from damaging the redhead too badly when he had the chance and kept him from being gentle as he wanted to be at the same time. He gave the redhead a somewhat sad smile, reaching up to stroke the strong jaw and somehow ended up brushing one of those cutesy thin eyebrows lightly.

'Let me know if you get cold.'

He kissed the redhead on the lips, moved down to his neck, kissing and licking the other's throat. He didn't really dare nip anymore, the temptation to leave marks was too strong and considering what Daichi would be wearing in less than forty eight hours that wasn't advisable –did the redhead really *need* all those shirts being so open in the chest they only showed the fishnet?- avoiding the other's nipples this time. Finally removing the hand on the seal, he stroked the redhead's nape once or twice- not really teasingly as much as casually affectionate, then pulled away and used it to manipulate Daichi's pants until he had a proper hold on the redhead's erection and he could pull it out of its confines.

The saffron haired man nodded to those words, even if they sounded like a joke and a joke of worse kind at that. Because now, even if he wanted, he couldn't feel cold. Minato's chakra fed him like a notorious meal and his insides were again and again washed over with this sugary, sticky feeling that felt like if he ate too much warm bread. It was not only sickly sweet but also sickly warm so it seemed that the sole looking at the blond made him stand in the right spot for sunshine (the only exception were those darned nipples who lived ten thousand years back in the ice age but he couldn't do much about them – they will have to come down to their right act on their own).

Gods, he was so in love. So in love. That's why even sole changes on Minato's face didn't escape him. The blonde once again had this pensive look on his face, watching him like if he couldn't put a finger on something and left him puzzled in the result. He didn't know what caused this behavior, but deep inside he felt it wasn't a positive feeling at all – maybe it had to do with guilty or their past? Maybe he remembered Kushina?...

He could. To him in this dark atmosphere Minato could resemble of anyone, and if he squinted his eyes he could as well see Karura in those eyes and smell her shampoo in the blonde curls. He didn't because it didn't matter – Karura was no one to him and she didn't matter. He was with someone he wanted to be to begin with. But with Minato it was different matter. He had feelings for her, she didn't leave him on her own or at his own will.

If it wasn't for tragic happenings in the past he'd probably see the happy family of three welcoming him and his son here, smiling, laughing… maybe with another baby on the way, why not… he'd probably come out of it fifteen years older than he would enter or maybe he wouldn't at all. As the years passed his steely reason weakened and it was becoming harder and harder to resist the urge to do something irrational. He didn't know if he wouldn't snap at some point and just kill one of them… The sole idea of wrapping his hands around the red-haired woman's neck made him curl his fingers on the man's arms to the point they almost drew blood. It was a scary idea. It was good it was his imagination only. It was good he didn't have to experience it in real life.

But he didn't want the blonde to feel anxiety when he was with him. He didn't want him to remember of anyone else. Look at me. Only at me. Just as I looked at you for so many years. He took the kiss with gratitude. It felt like a drop of a rain on the burned ground. He wanted to hug him and hold him close, but before he could get his hands away from under the shirt, Minato had gone lower. And lower. And lower. His breath hitched and his ears started to burn lightly as he rose his head to look at the window – like if looking outside could somehow prevent him from taking part in this act – and only one thought flew through his head: where are you putting those hands?

Not that he didn't know. He lived too long to not know what meant the unzipping of the fly, especially in such situation. A flash of shame, like a single click of the electric flashlight went through him and vanished. What would he think of me? But then, why would he have to think anything different? They got naked around each other for far too many times as there was usually too little time to get absurd about privacy on ninjas missions, sometimes even all three of them in the same room. Sure, they changed now, got older and stronger, but they were still the same. That didn't change the fact that when he felt the grip on his member, he looked at it like if it was some kind of knar of another species.

He heard the wind howling at the other side of the window and felt the blood pounding in his ears. Minato's hands were absurdly warm and compared to the lovers he had invited to the bed before his own marriage – absurdly delicate. Almost like Karura's. But her hands were never so firm – she caught him like if she was afraid she would break him and sometimes that annoyed him much more than the fact she tried to fake orgasms with him.

He slowly let out his shaky breath. His nape had pulsed nicely along with the blonde's touch – it seemed that the man treated it like some kind of erogenous spot – he was right but only in half. It was only a frail spot of uncovered nerves after all. He didn't say anything about it though. His penis reacted much better to the touch here. He smiled lightly. He dreamed so many times of such situations. Let's see how would the blond act in reality…

He was glad he didn't removes hands from under the shirt after all. The skin felt a little clammy and turbeclous, but even if he would love to touch it with his own lips, he didn't remove the material. Instead he moved his own hands to the blond's pants and after a quick search he unzipped his pants also. Usually he was first to sexually stimulate his partner but it didn't matter. The wind still howled in the dark of the night, snow fell and wrapped the windows in the white mud and the fire had licked the air, making everything dance around them in the mysterious flash of the lights. When he leaned forward to nip playfully at the earlobe of his sweet kouhai, the trail of saliva that was left on his chest glistened with brush of colder air and movement alone.

'Got milk?...' he murmured playfully and licked the spot below his ear. What a shame that the man didn't have earring. Nothing smelled of an erotic playing like a lick on the slick jewelry. He made a note to repair it in the future. Now, that the blonde was within his reach, he could as well terrorize him into something of such kind. He felt the warm member under his hand and circled his hand around it. Yes. 'Or have you gotten hypnotized by my one eyed snake? Look out, you might not get out alive of this encounter, desert predators are quite deadly in the meeting.'

The blond let out a small grunt of surprise, stopping what he was doing to look up at the redhead. As usual, Daichi didn't seem to notice he was perfectly capable of crushing things with those hands of his without even trying.

'Am I doing something wrong, or is there any other particular reason for you to try to break my arms?' The question could have been teasing, yet wasn't. Minato had never gone beyond some kissing with another man, not even light touching over other's clothing, let alone actual fondling. He was simply touching Daichi parting from the base that they were both men and touching him as he himself liked to be touched.

Maybe he was doing something horribly wrong, committing some sort of terrible faux pass of homosexual relationships, not that he had heard anything about it- not that he had exactly looked either. But… he didn't want Daichi to feel uncomfortable about what they were doing. Well, maybe a little. Daichi was almost cute when he was uncomfortable, but he didn't really want to hurt him, not like this. The man's body had reacted as expected to the stimulation, so that, if nothing else, could be trusted and discarded as source of this sudden tenseness. So the redhead was provably, as usual, looking too much into the situation. What a surprise.

Smiling a little, he wrapped an arm around the redhead's waist, pulling him closer so he would stop trying to cheat out of the earlier promise and so he could nuzzle his neck lightly, the fingers of his other hand trailing nonsensical arrays on the hardened shaft.

'Why are you anxious?' Not mad, not scared, not uncomfortably- instinct told him the redhead wasn't feeling any of those things, and as he wouldn't really tell him what he was thinking about (not really) he was left with only this to ask.

The redhead had let out a shaky breath at the closeness. The lack of distance made it really uncomfortable to hold hands in the blond's pants under that angle, so he had to take them out. That didn't make him very happy – more it made him feel weird. He was not used to be treated without having to give back something in return. Without the possibility to touch he had lost also the possibility to lead the game and not having control on this field had scared him. Not much, but it was new and as everything new, it made him feel endangered. He wasn't very prone to changes.

He took a deeper breath as Minato kept on caressing his shaft – very lightly, but it was enough to keep him stimulated and eager for more. Such need also made him want to wiggle on his place. So, instead of doing that he had leaned forward and touched Minato's neck with his lips.

'Why don't you let me touch you?' he breathed out, questioning in answer 'I also want to make you feel good. Minato-kun…'Another deeper breath as his manhood tingled a bit. 'Minato-kun…' Another plea, another kiss on the neck. Maybe he could soften him up.

Minato ignored the small flutter of disappointment at the loss of warmth and strong hands stroking his erection, but chose to bear with it. It's not like if he'd be able to do anything about it either way, and he really wanted the reward, no matter how frustrating it got. Not that that throaty tone Daichi had just dipped his voice into helped much, especially when the other's lips were pressed against his neck. But either way it would take a lot more than just a sexy voice to get him to give up his –evil was a bit strong of a word, wasn't it? Let's say… diabolical plan.

'Maybe I'll tell you later.' he purred against the other's chest, dipping his tongue on that really odd dip of a scar Daichi had there (he could have sworn it was poisoned tissue, but who would be stupid, suicidal or drunk enough to think to try and poison Daichi, he didn't know) and finally took a firm grasp of the other's erection and giving it an experimental pump. Yeah… he probably would. When Daichi left and he was sure the redhead wouldn't kill him for it.

The redhead's breath hitched a bit too loudly for his likings. But he only bit his lips and leaned own to hide his eyes in the crook of the blonde's neck. It was so long when someone touched him there. It felt like if his ability of breathing out had took a moment of hesitation. He swallowed quietly.

'Minato-kun…' he muttered in a deep tone. His voice was far from pleading this time, but the emotion it bore was still expecting. Sure, it wouldn't be comfortable to reach for the man's penis in that position, but if he couldn't play with that…

His hands slowly moved around the blonde's hips, still not leaving the line of his pants and dove under, where his round cheeks hid. Without hesitation which surprised even him a bit one of his hands had moved over the one round half of the blonde's bottom while the other snaked smoothly into the crack in-between, until it touched the orifice it searched for. He opened his mouth and licked the blonde over his Adam's apple, then blew the air over the wetted skin. His hips pressed a bit harder into the hold. 'Oh, Minato-kun.'

This time it wasn't even a plea. It was a demand. He wasn't a spoiled brat and he was used to walking away from not getting what he wanted, but his inner love (libido- he corrected himself) prisoner was starved dead and out of the cage after years of being locked. The pace was good so far, but if the blonde would keep playing the tune slow he might end up acting more like a caveman than a dignified politician. It was hard to contain himself when the bottle of water dangled in front of a thirsty person, but once the lips touched the liquid it was impossible to stop himself from chugging the containment down like a madman.

The thing Minato did in reaction –Because there was no way the sound that came from his mouth was human speech, unless it was some sort of archaic and utterly lost agglutinative language- would have been hilarious in any other circumstance. Considering the pitch of it, it would at the very least be something Gygouyi would happily have replied to and possibly even understood. Through the years it had become painfully clear that Minato had sadly spent some crucial time of his development away from human touch and as result the blonde was utterly shameless, being able to shrug off things that would have made stronger men hide under their beds for years to come without so much as batting an eye.

Indeed, one could count the times the blonde had become visibly embarrassed about anything that had happened could be counted with the fingers of one hand. It seemed that today was the day to add another finger, because after showing Daichi off his lap, the blonde just pointed at him (for some reason he had the irrational urge to yell 'objection!' at the top of his lungs) and after a few moments of trying to get his mouth to work, settled for turning something more or less around the color range of Gaara's hair.

Daichi on the other hand stared at him with wide eyes, his face expression carved into deep shock. At the first second he hadn't understood what was happening, so when he was thrown off it felt like if he was suddenly put on a psychical vertigo and left him pretty much dumbfounded. He didn't remember the time when the blond… spoke to him in such a strange… talk and he could barely remember anything close to such reaction. And it was long, long, long time ago. And wasn't even half of what he saw now. The times when one could surprise a Kazekage so much he'd feel at complete loss were long gone. The things that love made people do. He quickly scanned over the facts of the last ten seconds and dared to breathe. Surprise, surprise, the fire still cracked in the chimney and the world still went round.

'What?' he finally asked in a tone that spoke of nothing but a deep astonishment. They were old. They already knew sex from many sides. What there was to be scared about? He was sure that he didn't hurt him at all. Daichi had only stared back, realization slowly dawning on him in silence. The wind voiced his opinions in windese behind the windows but he didn't do much to even register it.

'No way.' he said finally, then slowly, shyly smiled with disbelief 'Unbelievable.' Oh yes, a moment more he was this close to actually laughing out loud. And by this close it meant pretty close. Who would have thought that Minato, after so many years of different possibilities would stay pretty much innocent when it came to anal sex? That was pretty sweet actually.

If by giving him that look the redhead intended to make Minato blush even more he certainly managed that, and being the fair skinned, northern-born person he was it showed even in the dim light of the fireplace. In fact it showed horribly.

'Oh, shut up.' he said sullenly, reaching for one of the discarded gloves and throwing it at the older man. Made as they were of soft leather, they were hardly the consistency of which he'd like to have smashed onto the man's smiling face. But ah, it was his own fault for not stashing large rocks in emergency sacks in the middle of nowhere.

Daichi had barely discarded the glove as he was now laying on his side and howling with laughter. Really, the situations wasn't that funny, but Minato's face made up for anything he hadn't seen for a long, long time. And the redness itself only made him look like a grotesque parody of himself, and that itself said much. He tossed the glove back only half heartedly and covered his face with his hands as his arms shook with laughter. So far he had only managed to quiet down his voice. The body reactions were another thing.

'Har har har, oh yes, hilarious, I'm sure.' the blond said in a miffed tone, glaring daggers at the redhead and quickly taking advantage of the fact the other was flat on his back to half straddle him, one hand gripping the hair at the base of his nape and tugging at it less than gently and the other going back into the other's pants.

'What happened to not touching me?' a purposeful squeeze. 'Huh?'

The redhead had winced at the sudden tug – it wasn't that hard, but still were his hair and that alone helped him cease his laughing a bit. Not to mention the fact his manhood didn't forget the heat of a moment in a few seconds and it reacted pretty nicely toward the brush of the blonde's fingers. He slowly removed hands from his face, still wincing slightly, but not ceasing the smug grin from his face, The pout also looked sweet on the blond.

'I still don't understand what's the purpose of that.' he muttered in husky tone, then moved one of his palms along the other man's cheek 'It's hard to just sit here when I also want to do something for you in return.'

'I know.' the blush gave no signs of going anywhere anytime soon, but the blonde was obviously over his bout of awkwardness. By contrast, the redhead's hand felt nicely cool against the comparatively much warmer skin, even with the older man no longer freezing. Leaning on the touch, Minato turns his head enough to lick at the palm then nip lightly at the thumb.

'How lucky you are a great man of remarkable character, strong will, reliable words and such other appraisable virtues, right, Kazekage-sama?' Tugging a bit more on the hair just because he liked how it made Daichi's throat arch like that, Minato started stroking the rigid skin he had on his hands.

'Of course.' he muttered as he gently pushed his thumb past the white teeth and felt the wet insides of the blond's mouth. 'I'm sure you have never doubted it.' And after that, he slapped the blonde's face – not hard – if anything, it was a mockery worth only a child's serious slap, but it was a response toward the message the indication made. Minato looked pretty cute with that blush but he still was twisted inside. He closed his eyes and let his hands lay on the wooden desks. If he wanted to play with a doll, he could play a doll for once. Experiences with that man were never anything normal after all. But he was pretty sure it would be pretty awkward. As much as Minato indicated, it was pretty hard to keep his hands off – the blonde was just so tempting.

'I have my hands just right here.' he said finally, wiggling his fingers off where they laid, which meant the floor 'Does that satisfy you?'

Despite the lightness of it, it didn't help anything the steady warmth still concentrated on the blonde's cheeks (not to mention's Daichi's perceptions of what a 'light slap' entitled to), so Minato just gave him an unimpressed look that quickly changed to a pleased smile.

'Oh, you've always know how to please me, sempai~' was the throaty purr the blonde replied with, getting more comfortable on top of the other' man, squirming a bit to try and find a position that made him as uncomfortable as he was making the other man. Yes, Daichi had always known how to. He also has a definite talent to make him incredibly frustrated.

The redhead made a voicement of his lack of comfortableness by a deafened grunt and moved his hips a bit on the sideway so the blonde could finally lean on as he wanted. However, when his member also got felt up in addition he bit on his lips also. The way his head was held was becoming a bit uncomfortable, and it was so easy to miss when Minato purred like that.

'Please, please me in return also.' he muttered, then frowned a bit at the words. They felt so… submissive. Normally it would be a command, but when he had no hands to pinpoint his aggressive side of the nature it felt dull and indecisive, like if there was unfulfilled void. And voids linked to question marks that were associated to weakness and indecision. It felt alien. He was not used to being in such position. Pretty uncomfortable. So he turned his head back and looked the blonde straight into his pretty, oh so pretty eyes and smiled smugly. 'Please.' he added in a throaty tone. Now. That's better.

Minato cheeks were still a healthy shade of pink, and with the way the other man talking in that voice he liked oh so much, he didn't found it hard to find the expression he wanted.

'But I really want to touch you, like this…' he practically mewled against the man's lips, his eyes matching the pleading tone. 'Please let me…?' Not the most dignified or subtle of treatments, but unlike his red-haired friend, Minato had no qualms on doing whatever he felt would serve to get him what he wanted.

That was it. The oversweetened, pleading tone that seemed to be so much childish and playful it almost hurt his memories. Daichi closed his eyes and moved his head up to catch the lips in a mushy kiss, only to fall back down, this time much more boneless than before. He gave up.

'Do as you please.' he breathed out and slowly closed his hands into fists, only to loosen them later. It seemed that if anything, this really will be a play on the verge of the knife. A pretty painful experience for someone who didn't play in anything for many years now. Minato let out a little moan to display just how pleased he was about the man's answer, leaning to run his teeth over the muscles of his neck and avoid an accidental smile that would give him away.

'Thank you.'

For some reason, Kushina has never been able to say no to him when he did that, either. Maybe it was just something redheads in general were weak against? At any rate it wasn't something he would forget to exploit any time soon.

Daichi's reactions really were funny, because by telling him not to touch him he'd meant not try to do the things he was doing back, not for him not to touch him at all. If the redhead hadn't touched him so aggressively, or if the touch had at least been over the pants, he probably wouldn't have pushed him off, too, but hey. This was more comfortable anyway for him, and Daichi seemed warm enough not to complain about the floor.

Pressing his lips against the older man's, he nuzzled against them for a moment before slipping his tongue inside, this time turning it into a slow kiss as he adjusted the hold he had on the man's erection for something less teasing and more useful. At any rate, what Daichi was doing was immensely amusing, so he had no intention of letting him know. Making him uncomfortable was something he liked to do too much for that.

The redhead looked back at him. Sure, the blonde had closed eyes, and all he could recognize was a blur of skin and blonde twinges of brows, hair and eyelashes, but only like that he could keep himself together. Because it was so much easier to lose himself in emotions when he didn't notice the wind, the wooden harsh floor, the fire blazing from the side with warmth and the white strips of snow slowly covering sides of the window's glass. It was like with lake – he could observe the sky while standing in it or close his eyes and just take a step forward, knowing very well it would be the very last step he would do in his own life. And Minato was a virtuoso that kept him on the tight leash once again – his hands twitched against the floor, needy, thirsty for touch.

He wanted to feel the texture of the clothes, the warmth of the skin, the shape of the body which hanged upon him. He wanted to be so much closer. The floor was hard. It was nothing new, he walked upon harder surfaces when the deserted lands changed from sand lakes to stone fields, but only when you lied on the hard floor you saw how different from bed it was. It was nothing new, he lived through so many sleepless night on stones and wood. But now everything felt so much… more. Twice as hard. Twice as cold. Twice as strange. He breathed in and out until he let the blonde invade his mouth, and his back moved a bit upwards at the feeling of slick, warm muscle intruding his private side of face.

He moved back with his tongue as far as he could at first, a homelord scared out of his home by the strangers. The kiss was so strange and private, and yet he didn't mind, because it wasn't just anyone, because it was Minato, his sweet little Minato-kun… He felt like a nightwalker. Like an awesome genjutsu of the kind he didn't want to wake up from. His heart quickened a few more times as he responded at the tongue with his own, pressing hard against the other man's mouth. If he could speak he'd probably mutter something senseless as the emotions of something moist and warming up bubbled up in his chest and started taking over him again. His hands twitched on the floor, this time more visibly as he moved his arms up a few centimeters and laid them down again.

Gods, that amount of feelings was unhealthy. He could even lose his head if he was not very careful. All of it happened only in a few seconds, but the time really didn't mean anything for him now. Only when the hand of the blonde touched him below his waist his misted eyes went back to the reality again. His eyebrows twitched and he moved his legs a bit closer themselves, as he always did when he saw any possibility of having his manhood injured. Minato was also a daring little creature. He slowly broke the kiss and blinked, looking at the fire in the fireplace. The feeling of nightwalking was still too hard to push away at such situation. The touch was also warm. Warm and a little… heavy.

'Not so tight.' he muttered, not looking at the man. The touch was firm and not as strong as he was used to with rough hands that people in Suna kept on having. One of his hands, obedient like a devil in a box, slowly crawled over the blonde's other one, that kept his head at this strange, a little uncomfortable position. He looked back at him and slowly moved his fingers over the wrist and petted it carefully. He loved this skin texture. It was so… womanlike. 'Not so tight, Minato-kun.' (or I'm going to suffocate in the corner of my own brain.)

The blond slowly pulled away to look at the older man, his head coking slightly to the side and just staring for a few moments. At that moment he would have gladly murdered things to know what was going on through the redhead's mind. He didn't know why the older man was looking like that or acting the way he did. Daichi looked rather uncomfortable and that appealed to that little part of him that took pleasure on knowing he was willingly allowed this much trust and this much power, but at the same time it made him feel bad for what he was doing. He didn't know what was it about Daichi that made him want to be like this to him. Worse yet, he couldn't shake the feeling he'd been told the reason, and just like so many other things; he'd chosen to forget about it.

He wasn't sure he wanted to unearth that particular memory – he tended to forget a lot of things because it was convenient for him, because there were things that were better buried and forgotten. Still, he loosened his hold on the rust-colored hair and instead gave the hand the older man had touched him with a small, affectionate squeeze, moving it quickly away before it could get a hold of him. He wanted to be nice to him. He really, really… sometimes, and lately, most of the time, because the way he looked at him when he did made him so mad at the other, so mad he hadn't said anything before when it was this obvious he'd wanted it, and so happy now because he had, but also…

'Sorry.' he said, using it to stroke the man's jawbone gently and then, as if drawn by a magnet, brushed one of the tiny eyebrows with his thumb, smiling at the thought that they really made the man look like a cat_. I love you_ he thought, but didn't say. 'You really like cornering me, don't you?' he said, nuzzling against the redhead's neck, his voice soft and amused.

The redhead did try to get a proper hold on that hand, he did. So when Minato moved away he felt disappointment stinging with a thin needle around his stomach. He started to really dislike this passiveness he was thrown into. It was not hate yet, but it was close to it. As far as his sex knowledge went, he knew that if anyone was supposed to be passive during the intercourse, it were women. Like for example, his wife – sure, she learned quickly, but at the very beginning he felt like if he smeared his fluids into a warmed up piece of bed that could only hold onto his back. It was not pleasant at all. He closed his eyes as the fingers moved over his jaw and eyebrows, once again. What was with this gesture? It was second time Minato was doing it. Not that he didn't enjoy it.

The care was delicate and tasted of affection. His chest started overflowing with feelings that made him feel a little dizzy and a lot more happy than he thought they would. But he wanted to share them. It was almost painful to hold them in place.

'Minato…' he breathed out deeply, signaling his pleasure and opened his eyes just to catch a glimpse of something in eyes of the man before he dug down for his neck. It made him want to moan in frustration. The emotionality of his chest had also flooded to his groin. His cock twitched as he moved his hands up and held them above the blonde for a moment and let it fall down again. Who was cornering whom here?...

His lips dried too much to give a proper answer. But then his eyes caught a glimpse of the fireplace and his reason came back to him – at least the bits he needed. He smirked a bit. When the blonde said about not touching him, it really wasn't a restricted rule. In an answer he moved his hips, rubbing it against the other man's pelvis in more than obvious gesture, then brought his knee up. With a moment of good angling he could rub it against the right place just like he wanted. He shot the ceiling a triumphant gaze. Oh yes. Right there.

'You look pretty when you cry, Minato-kun.' he finally breathed out with voice he found and rose up his hands. 'Every cornered animal shows it's most valuable traits in the ending of outmost danger.'

His hands slowly crawled upon his own neck and moved over his own face, like if he hadn't touched his own body since a few months. Only after they glided over the neck and his lips as he licked his own fingers for a moment, he started opening his own clothes. Minato said that touching was restricted, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least play with himself a bit. He leaned over one of the ears of the man, and whispered, still feeling up the manhood hidden under the pants.

'I hope you don't mind.'

The blond made a small jerking movement that probably meant he would have leapt away if he hadn't caught himself. Daichi wasn't the only male in the room who had an instinctual reaction of protecting his groin from possible damage after all. The movement caught him off guard though, pinpointing his attention away from the somewhat stifling emotionality of what was happening and how he felt, placing it back to more basic levels. He let out a surprised and somewhat thoughtful noise, as if he hadn't expected the contact to feel good. Yeah, weak as redheads could be on regards of pleading, you also couldn't trust any of them as far as promises went. He opened his mouth to say something in response, something chiding and maybe teasing, but then the redhead spoke again.

'You look pretty when you cry, Minato-kun.' he stilled at that. His whole body stopped in a not quite natural lack of movement, his eyes immediately losing focus, like a toy switched off. (take anything) (baby, you must remember) (no) (anything you want) (temptations aren't always) (nononono) (drink me, eat me) (…)

'Do I?' he heard himself say, his own voice sounding utterly alien to his own ears. It was good enough to anchor him in the now and now the terrifying nightmare of back then, but he was still rattled enough to not know what else to do right now and instead just laid fully on top o the redhead like a boneless mass, his hands catching the other's and pulling them away from his body. He pressed them to the sides of the redhead, as if he wanted to pin them there, yet as soon as the knuckled if the older man touched the wood, he stopped applying any sort of pressure, just leaving his hands loosely circling the other's wrists. 'Say something.'

Daichi had quieted for a moment, feeling how the body mass actually pushed the breath out of his lungs. He wanted to laugh at the blonde that he was heavy – which was humorous because at this state it took more than a body of another male to make him sweat his muscles, but the not quite natural look in his eyes had stopped him. His brows furrowed. There was something completely out of the picture here. He blinked slowly, watching the window which he had more or less on the side of him and watched the snow falling down. Then he closed his eyes and turned his head to the side. His nose touched the blonde's cheek. Minato's arm hid his mouth completely.

'You smell nice.' he muttered, taking a deeper breath and smelling the ashes of the burning fireplace, dust that lied on the floor and sweet musk that belonged only to the blond. 'I can't see a thing when you huddle over me like that.'

He opened his eyes for a moment, then moved his head a bit more the right side, so he could reach the man's ear. It took a bit of neck straining, but it was okay.

'The thing is' he whispered in a tone of someone who was about to spill the top secret information 'That I don't want to see anything else.'

Was that enough for a man to feel comforted? He wasn't sure – it was already a pull on his tiny romantic seeds in the very deep hikes of his mind. He'd cuddle him as Minato seemed to be in need of this, but as his hands were still over his, he was not sure if that was the right move. So, instead, he had once again sneaked out one of his hands and lightly petted the blonde hair. They were very soft, almost toddler like. He didn't like the man being like that. It almost seemed as if Minato was hurt.

There was no reaction from the blond for a few seconds. He heard the redhead's words and was thankful for them, but it took him a little while to actually find their significance. He hated when that happened to him, those freaky déjà-vu spells that were unpredictable and felt like a shower of ice down his spine… Words and moments and yes, memories of things he hadn't been able to push at a safe enough distance, bubbling up and asking to show… His arms moved lightly, wrapping around Daichi's s neck.

'It's not my fault you are so short.'

Daichi had only smiled at the comment. Sure, it was a little irksome – he didn't find anything wrong with his short height after all – but it really didn't matter. 'Am I?' he said as he kept on moving his hand over the blond strands and slowly moved his other hand to let it join in the caress.

'I thought it was you who were too tall, Minato-kun.'

'Hmm.' Minato arched a bit in the touch, momentarily forgetting the redhead wasn't supposed to be doing any sort of touching and unconsciously giving a sign that he was enjoying the action. 'That too.'

The redhead's smile stayed.

'It's all right' he muttered as he slowly raked his hands lower, until his hands got a good grip on the man's shoulders. Then, within a moment, he had rolled them around, so he could sit up and look down at the man. Oh yes. That's how he enjoyed his victims. Sprawled on the floor, looking pretty. 'I don't mind.'

Because truly, who cared about it when he could watch from above. He lowered down to kiss a bit sloppily the left side of the blonde's jaw. Oh, he adored that man. He could eat him alive, if that wouldn't mean the fact he'd have to deal with the lack of him later. The blond stared up at him for a moment, his expression a bit guarded and perhaps even pouty, ducking his head so he could push the redhead away and nip at the man's lips.

'You are too nice to me, Kazekage-sama.'

'Yes, I know.' which sounded like yeh-ai-no at this point, because he was never a good speaker when he had to kiss someone at the same time. It wasn't a bad thing, he'd rather talk like that and get kisses, and not be kissless man with good speech. After receiving and giving a few nips, the redhead pulled off for a moment to moisten his lips with a single lick of a tongue, and then dipped down to deepen the kiss. Now that was a good ride. He smirked lightly into it as his hands had finally moved from the sides of the man and slowly moved down the chest, searching for the erected nubs that should be there somewhere under all piles of clothing. He had completely pushed out the idea of keeping his hands to himself. In the war and love, every move was allowed.

Or, in such case, intimate intercourse. He smiled wider as he had finally felt something under his fingers. Unless he was wrong, he had finally found the right nipple. Found it and brushed his fingers over it. It felt pretty arousing.

Minato chuckled at the way the older man's voice sounded, the sound melting off into a soft appreciative moan as the redhead's lips covered his. It felt really nice. Minato really liked kissing, and it had been so very long since anyone had- actually, it had been a really long while since he'd considered kissing anyone. He couldn't do it and that was it, but now that he could- oh…

He apparently still hadn't remembered what he'd made the older man promise, because as the others hand brushed over his clothing he let out another little sound that was definitely in the spectrum of encouraging. Unlike Daichi, the cold didn't affect him half as much and he was decently clothed for the climate, as far as his needs went. The small stimulating was anything but unpleasant, and in his current state of wanting to be touched the way he was, definitely welcome.

Daichi liked that response. It was definitely a good response. It brushed something inside him. Not exactly physical. But he didn't exactly want to name it – it would be too… belittling to bear in his mind. Because the single idea of heart dancing like a puppet on a string- oh, he was not supposed to go there. Retreat to the safer grounds. There. Out of the emotional lake. He backed away, watching the man under him for a moment – maybe a second or two too long for a normal stare, but who could blame him. He was blanketing for a very handsome- no, very pretty male. Such terms as 'handsome' didn't suit him. Minato's beauty was more of jewels than of the steely hardness of a sword or a wound in the battle.

He blinked, not really brushing the gleam that covered his eyes. If the time could stop… He moved his hands op for a single caress as he touched the smooth cheeks and leaned down to kiss the corner of the lips. Then he slid down, leaving a trail of kisses under the jaw and on the uncovered part of the neck as his hands had moved down in a caress through clothes, stroking, petting. He had all right to remain smittened. In silence, he reached finally the clasps of the pants once again, and gave it a thoughtful look. Then he leaned down and kissed the line where both shirt and pants touched. It's been pretty long since he had sex with someone of same sex and it was even longer since he had given anyone a proper blowjob.

He was sure that determination would help him with the loss of experience. In a moment of hesitance he moved his hands around the thighs and caressed them also through clothes. And it was so sinister. He leaned down, nipped at the zipper of the pants and once again uncovered the skin.

'You're such a feast, Minato-kun.' He murmured. And boy, was he hungry.

The blond stared back at the older man, not seeming to mind one way or another that the fact the other was at the most advantageous position. Something in the way the redhead was looking at him now reminded him of a long time ago, when he'd indefinitely altered what he was to the redhead…

It made him feel a little nostalgic about back then. A little sad about everything that had been lost. That loss was part of every shinobi's life didn't make anything easier to bear. In the end, it just made it happen all the more often. H closed his eyes and tilted his head a little as the redhead kept touching him with lips and hands, feeling a little odd at being treated so delicately by someone who he had actually seen turn solid rock to dust without much of an effort. A little dangerous too, and that made it all the more pleasant.

He would have easily let himself forget how he had gotten there and let the redhead continue to molest him until the small tug made him realize where Daichi's ministrations were being targeted. His cock responded in such an eager way at just the idea of getting head from Daichi (or maybe just his voice?) that made him feel teenagerish and rather slutty at the same time.

'Wait, wait… Daichi-kun.' he reached for the redhead's hair. By this point in life, yanking a redhead by the head seemed to be pretty much the standard procedure for dealing with such individuals. 'Don't do that, we had an agreement.'

The redhead rose up his head obediently, though not without a wince. His hair was one of his weaker points, that's why he kept it short enough to not let anyone grab it. Futile attempt when you stopped looking at your back it seemed.

'Do you really expect I'll be laying obediently on the floor like some kind of… of… woman….' he breathed as he pushed one of his fingers into the belly button. He didn't understand this. Was he supposed to play a prostitute from brothel? The one from the illegal ones where girls were kidnapped and usually just lied on their backs crying as men did what they needed to do. He wanted to share and to give and it was a rare feeling, so not being able to act on it was completely strange for him.

And wasteful. He closed one of his eyes as he propped himself on elbows to put his head's skin at ease '…then you'll have to make me.' It sounded more challenging than he really thought of it, but he was not really stepping back on those words. He also wanted to enjoy the treat and not only be at mercy of the feeder. 'Why do you want me to play a puppet?'

Distracted. So it was all a distraction. Not a part of everything but a distraction from… from what? Did Minato actually act upon different kind of pleasures during sex? He himself knew only two – physical and emotional, and at such case they tuned in together pretty well. It sounded like if Minato became someone of another species. But he still kissed good for a being from another dimension. The redhead closed his eyes at the taste and tasted the lips with pleasure, however when the man pulled away his hair once again started feeling queasy and he knew he had to do something for it to stop.

'Do as you like.' he said finally, not really convinced by the talk, but seeing there was no other way but to agree, he decided to sit quiet. Again. But he was sure that once Minato would show the sign of being satisfied he would surely jump in to distract him. Distract him until he would see him, and only him. And nothing else.

Besides, Minato seemed to be cute and who was he to decline the experimental offer of a younger. In his mind the blonde was still a bit more of his kouhai than his partner in ruling.

The blond stared back, looking rather pleased surprised by the redhead's quick complying. Daichi was always letting him do what he wanted, even if that wasn't what he wanted at all. It really didn't help calm down the unusual flood off affection he felt for the man, It was obvious how unhappy and uncomfortable it made him feel, and of course, it made him want to rub against the redhead and purr just about knowing about it.

'You know, I've never done it before so I can't assure you about how good it will be.' he said, parting from the kiss enough to give the redhead a look that was a poor job out of showing just how happy with himself he was 'But want me to give you a blowjob?'

He said a blowjob, he was sure of it. Such a vulgar word. His arousal… oh gods, that was probably not the best idea considering how tender his manhood felt about the idea of any love at all. It was ages since he had sex with anyone and the nerves took up everything twice as hard. It was not very good but so what? He was not going to even think about how bad it was. He was not going to think at all.

'I'm not going to ask for anything like this…' he breathed out as his eyes slid to the blond's mouth and got back to the blue miracles again 'You should know better Mi-na-to.'

Oh, he forgot about the '-kun' part. Screw that. They were lovers after all, weren't they? Yes, they were. That changed a few things.

'But please, look out at your teeth.' he murmured almost into the kiss as he moved a bit forward 'I'm very used to having my manhood in healthy shape.'

The blond stayed right where he was, practically eating at the redhead with his eye, so closely was he paying attention to the man's' reactions. The way his pupils dilated before darting to his mouth was definitely encouraging.

'Maybe you should ask?' he purred, his hand trailing down the older man's abdomen and boldly taking his arousal in hand, giving it a couple pumps. Really, put that in his mouth? Really? That sounded uncomfortable. What had he walked into? Smiling more, he leaned up to lick at the man's neck, his other hand sliding past his side to brush against the whimper-trigger spot. 'You know how good at learning I can be with a little of instruction…'

The redhead shivered at the touch, but this time he bit down the whimper. But he had to close his eyes. The sensation was too strong. Oh gods. He hadn't felt like that since so long (maybe besides a few of those times where he had touched himself under this water wasting shower, but it was only because it was this water wasting shower. He'd never dare to spill fluids so carelessly on the desert. Or he kept telling himself that.)

His bloodstream had caught up with it rather quickly. So now his heart was beating three times quicker, just to match the pulsating feeling in his cock. He felt his ears going red for another time and he wondered how much of this was actually visible in the dim light of the fire. Knowing his luck probably not much, but for a change his face probably colored too. Karura always said that his pale skin went darker only in bedroom. He laughed at her for saying such things, but now, when he cared, it seemed to be pretty embarrassing for his stoic position. He breathed out and opened his eyes again, licking his lips, then he leaned his face down so he could put his cheek on the top of the blond's head.

'Then maybe you should try to lower your head a little lower, along with your hands.' he muttered. He wanted to stay pretty much conscious during that – what a waste it would be if he had forgotten his first cock-play from the blonde because of too much excitement? It would be terrible. He pressed at his had a little harder. Showing clearly that he wanted him off his bare neck. He bit down another whimper. Why the man had to work like that on him. Why.

'Why, Kazekage-sama.' the blond answered in that somewhat smug, low tone he was quickly coming to associate with 'molester of Daichi's oh-so-happy with himself'. 'I'm actually starting to think you are looking forward to my less than perfect attempts.' Objectively, he saw nothing bad with what he was about to do. He was pretty sure for some it would have been a bit humiliating, but the truth was that Kushina had never acted like if it was something humiliating (in fact, she always looked damn smug when she did it… and hell, he hadn't even started and he was already starting to see why). And because this was Daichi. And that alone made even the idea of it acceptable and fun, and hey, maybe even rather thrilling.

But enough about inner monologues. It was time to get down to business, as painful a pun such as that might sound. Nuzzling under the man's jaw for another moment, simply because of how nice it was to have the redhead this close to touch and smell, he inversed the positions again (maybe they should have swept the place a bit while they were at it? He had no idea how much accumulated dust they were upsetting with their constant rolling) and with a boldness that would have made his wife proud (or maybe murder the man whose lap he was using as table) set to manipulate the man's pants so he could get a proper hold on his erection and get the material out of the way for what he wanted to do. He paused again to look up and make sure the redhead was looking, knowing he would be, but wanting to reassure himself of it all the same. Then he set to work.

He started with his tongue. Again he was basing what he was doing on what he knew for experience had felt good on him, so he gave the rigid flesh a quick, swipe of a tongue, pausing again in mild surprise at how different it tasted from what he remembered Kushina was like, then started covering the whole surface with small, not really hurried licks.

The redhead looked at the blond mesmerized. For a second he couldn't believe that it was happening. But then Minato did actually lick his manhood – licked it like he had never dreamed in his wildest dreams – and made his breath hitch. He felt his blood stream quickening up even more and his penis growing a few millimeters larger to its full strength so it could twitch, leak and feel glorious. The feeling was amazing… but it was the look that made everything sexy. He drank it with his eyes greedily, like a thirsty man drank water on the desert.

He tried to swallow his saliva. His throat was dry as sand. He felt his face burning as he had tried letting go of his breath and once again had it hitched, like if his lungs lost their ability to actually breathe out. The sensation was too wild. He couldn't just sit there like that. His elbows moved as he climbed back on them – he was pretty sure that if it wasn't for his black clothes he'd be all in dust. Or maybe because of it he already was. He was not really paying attention to it.

His hand moved out to touch Minato's hair and stopped there. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with it. Move closer? No, no, maybe move it aside…

…though definitely closer at the same time. Now that was a dilemma worth writing in books.

Minato was fully concentrated on what h was doing, in a sort of follow-steps sort of routine- he was carefully licking every spot he could to find what got the best reaction. It didn't taste that bad, it really just tasted like normal skin, but the scent and taste was somewhat stronger and muskier, and it affected him a lot more than he had expected. He was following a thick vein with the tip of his tongue when he felt the member jump lightly, something wet slowly dripping onto the fingers of the hand he was using to hold what he wasn't using to play with. It took him a moment to realize what it was.

The previous blush that had just recently decided to abate came back, not as strong and showy as the first time, but definitely there. When he felt fingers thread through his hair he automatically looked up, surprised to see that Daichi had changed positions. He was even more surprised to see the soft color on the man's face, and the way he was looking at him, his breath slightly ragged - gods, the redhead looked sexy like that. He just hoped he didn't decide to rip some hair out, he could do without bald spots.

'Guess I'm not that bad after all…?' he asked softly, not really making an effort to sound sexy or teasing. Daichi's eyes moved slightly, almost like if his pupils were trembling. It seemed he couldn't really concentrate on what he was hearing.

'…no.' he breathed out finally and let his hand fall down softly on the head below him. He let the fingers stroke the blond strands 'No. Not bad at all.'

The younger man just smiled in response, closing his eyes lightly as he let Daichi touch his hair for a moment, enjoying the attention. His heart beat oddly fast beneath his clothes and scars, even under the poisoned skin. His throat felt oddly tight, and it took him only a second or two to realize he was looking for something to say that would ease this heavy sort of breathlessness he felt.

'…this would be more comfortable if there was a chair.' he pointed out. It wasn't really a topic for conversation, just something to say, and thus, not something he really cared to have answered. He stroked the man lightly, wiping the light beads that had accumulated on the tip. He wondered… In a movement that he wouldn't have been able to not make slutty simply for what it was, he pushed the longer bangs framing the side off his face away with one hand and leaned down, trailing a quick test lick over the tip, pulling back to try and decide what it tasted like.

It wasn't sweet, that was for sure. It wasn't really bitter either, and there was some saltiness to it. Altogether, not really something his palate would be too fond of, but he was too used to eat things without caring for their actual taste to actually bother with that. Taking a small breath he leaned back down again, and this time pressed his tongue purposely against the more delicate skin, actually feeling the slit and pushing against it with the warm muscle. He didn't withdraw this time, either, just pressed against it, then licked it again. And again.

A chair. Minato talked about a chair. And he was pretty sure that if he would be sitting on chair, at the end of the act he could as well not sit on anything. Minato was a pretty good learner or a pretty good liar – this didn't feel like a first blowjob he had ever had in his life. It just felt like if the blond actually knew what he was doing. Not much though, but still. His hips buckled at the sensation, though he tried to keep it down, as he knew it was simply rude to add movement to the one that was already there. But it was so hard… Literally. Hard.

'I'm sorry.' he muttered feverishly, not really knowing that he was saying something, then he closed his eyes as his breath quickened. He couldn't decide if it was easier to breathe through opened mouth or through his teeth. It was both problematic to do so when his lungs couldn't keep up with his blood. He was not a screaming type of a lover – so he didn't have to bother with his voice so far. But Minato was impossible, impossible… The heat now started coming in waves and he felt his precome coming out freely in the answer of his slit-licking. The view was more than edible.

He climbed up on his arse far enough to sit up and he caught the blond's head in both of his hands – just to feel it under them. Then he slowly moved them back and forth his skull and neck, not sure what to do with them. A chair.

'Next time I'll make sure to summon the chair.' he blurted out, not really thinking what he was talking about. 'An awesome chair.'

'Mh?' the blond looked up at the apology, pulling away to lick at his lips. By the Leaf, if he'd though Daichi had looked fuckable three months ago when he was weak and vulnerable and drunk it was because he had never seen an aroused Daichi before. Maybe that was for the better. Rape charges were pretty serious things to issue against another ninja nation. With the gaping and lack of action, the precome had accumulated and was again trailing lazily over his hand. He gave it a quick, prefunctional lick to lick it, his other hand unconsciously reaching higher and spreading over the man's' lower stomach in a faintly possessive gesture, finger feeling the line of hair and strong muscle under satiny skin.

The fact he wasn't going to be getting any of that either way was actually starting to hurt him. Really. Physically hurt. Mostly in his pants.

'Awesome.' he muttered with a small chuckle, closing again his eyes and opening them lazily at the caress. He really loved it when people played with his hair. That the redhead could easily break his neck or simply crush his skull from this position just made it all the better.

…next time? Kages, they weren't done with this one and he was already looking forward to it. He almost wished some news from Sound would come to give them a reason to meet. Almost.

Deciding to go a step further to see if he could make Daichi make some sort of other sexy noise besides the ones he had heard so far, the younger man gave the erection a last lick before taking the whole head on his mouth, sucking for a moment before going back to the unhurried licking, only without pulling his lips away from it this time. There was this other thing he wanted to try, what was it…? What had Kushina…? Using the hand he kept wrapped around what wasn't on his mouth, he pressed his thumb at the base, rubbing at the area slowly. Whenever Kushina had done that to him, it had made him want to squirm out of his skin. Let's see what that did to the redhead.

The redhead enjoyed eagerly what the blond was providing him. The way he could occupy his hand also helped – it was both distracting and keeping him at a bay. Mostly because he had to look out to not harm the man. But the soft texture of hair and the nape of the neck of Minato was also a pleasure itself. Almost like petting a kitty (of course he wouldn't know what it was like because he had never petted kitties, kazekages didn't do that, but his son did and when nobody was looking he accidentally brushed his hand over the fur a few times).

The hand brushed his abdomen in a gesture that seemed to be a bit possessive, but it felt mostly caring – like a warm cover on his skin. Intruding in his private areas, but still warm. He wanted to say something, something that only at those time could be said, but before he came up with anything the blond put his penis in his mouth. Not whole he wanted to point that out. Not a whole penis. But it was enough to let go of his head, because one: he'd probably get too emotional with them and two: because he had to support his body somehow when he leaned back.

He moved his head to the side to bite through the louder breathing that came with occasional whimpering. His chest moved now rapidly and the heat came in much more intense waves. By the way it spread through his veins and slowly pooled down in his groin, it seemed he was much closer to the end than he thought. Dear gods. But how could he resist this delicate tongue and moist lips? The way blond looked at him seemed to send signals to his balls in command to produce sperm. He was so gay. Gods, he was so gay…

'It's funny…' he breathed out, still keeping an eye on what was happening below his waist 'How you keep remembering how to not use your teeth… People tend to forget that-'

And boy, did he knew. He had some experience with sharp clawed ninja from water grounds. Not very likeable at the very least. He wanted to say something more, this time surely wanting to show his need, his affection, his amazement toward the man's beauty – but instead of that his eyes almost instantly glazed over as he threw his head back to the ground, for the first time breaking eye contact. Minato started caressing some part of his skin that actually seemed to touch the nerves. His thighs spazmed in the electrifying feeling and he caught the verge of his coat and clenched his hands over it. It was a little too much, it was, it was…

'Oh please…' he murmured under his breath and then tossed head to the side. He didn't know how to act out the new emotion. 'Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please…' Oh please, do something. He was going to come. He was going to come very soon. Almost like a teenager.

Minato was thankful the redhead released his hold on his head. Not that the touching didn't feel nice or that he liked having his hair petted any less, not at all. It's just that he sort of didn't really like the idea of the redhead losing control and accidentally squeezing too hard. Skull fracture didn't really sound like an enjoyable experience. Not he had expected cock sucking to be one, and yet here he was, getting off like no tomorrow on sucking another man's cock. Well, not really sucking much, he was mostly licking the flushed erection, but still… He wasn't sure doing this really ought to be this arousing, but it somehow was, at least Daichi made it be so.

He loved -loved- feeling the minute tremors and twitches of muscle of the older man's stomach under his hand, the breathless, hitched little pants and whines he emitted as he teased him thoroughly. His answer was a little chuckle he stifled against the man's cock.

He would have liked to tell the redhead that a little teeth was really quite nice if you knew how to use them, and that if he'd had any more of a notion of what he was doing he would have liked to try that. But he knew how horribly sensitive that could feel and the redhead seemed close enough as it was, so he had decided to stick to what he knew he could perform. He really wanted Daichi to think what he was doing was good. He really, really wanted-

…and then the fucking redhead started begging. Fuck. He pulled away, breathing hard and just *staring* at the Daichi.

Fuck. He wanted to fuck him. He really, really wanted- Fuck. Sprawled on the floor and so wanton, so _fuck me please_. And he wanted- (Yes) ((eat me drink me)) ((beg me)) ((ask me for more))

'Yes.' the word was almost slurred, twinged with the indefinite accent that had been more related to his childhood than the current state of affairs he was immersed in. He wanted and wanted and really didn't seem worthy, seemed almost cruel but he couldn't, couldn't, not this time. He had a plan and depended on it and couldn't let himself be detoured by sexy Kazekages, no matter how fuck me and ravishable they might look. 'Okay.' he muttered, maybe in response to the please, adjusting himself on the man's lap, giving the twitching member two more purposeful licks, then slowly taking him deeper into his mouth.

He didn't go far, took maybe half of it, just enough to be comfortable and let the head press against the roof of his mouth, pressing his tongue against the underside of it. It felt firm and the texture was very soft. Making a small noise around the member, he paused again to adjust himself then bobbed his head lightly, once, twice. Moving just enough to make the redhead squirm, yet careful to keep his penis touching the differently textured places he was pressing against.

'Ah…!' _Ah, what are you doing, I didn't want you to do something like that, what I meant it was more of something mediocre so it wouldn't be so fast and so hard, sohard, sowet, so WET so warm so oh gods no yes I want I don't I me him his-_ And his mind went blank. Seriously, he wanted to ask all those things, he really did. But somehow his breath had to speed up along with his racing heartbeat that seemed to just go awry on what the blond was doing to him. And from what he felt, Minato stopped for a moment, giving him a breather, and then, simply went for it.

And it felt so good. So very, very good. So good his voice had completely died out , trapped in his throat. He stilled for a moment, feeling the warmth, the wetness, the moving tongue, and it was so good, it was too good, it was, oh gods everything rushed back to him, it was too good, it was too fast, it was, it was, it was…! He coughed in a spasm, not being able to take a breath properly, and then covered his mouth with a hand so he could bite on his own fingers – or else he would probably bite his tongue off. He was sure of that he would otherwise. Only that he wasn't really sure of anything, because it was too much already by then. Because the heat accumulated down below, pooling clearly in his hips regions, tightening his balls, and it was a vertigo, a vertigo of everything, he just didn't know, and he just didn't care, only knew that it was right, it was right to be there and feel that. Finally. He thought. And then, without a warning, he came.

Minato swallowed it. It's not that he didn't think about it, because he did. He thought of all the possibilities and options- and really, there weren't that many. He could spit it out, only there was nowhere to do that and walking outside to do it felt both stupid and too troublesome to bother, and if he did a stray droplet could fall her and there, and yay- wouldn't it be fun to explain either of their jounin why there was dried semen in his turtleneck or Daichi's pants? So he swallowed it. It wasn't really that much, anyway, though it was more than he would have personally preferred. And sure, it wasn't something he'd eat for sport or liking, but there were so many things that tasted so much worse in life.

He couldn't think of any, right now- no, wait, he could. Special secret recipe number seven probably tasted worse. Anything that Daichi had ever tried to cook (the two or three times he had bothered) had been vastly more horrifying. The innocently perfect looking cookies Neji had prepared… now, those hadn't been so bad. But they were a close call. No, it wasn't that terrible, he could deal with it, it was just- unpleasantly saltbitterish. Sort of a little not-liquid enough. It took him a moment or two to be sure he had swallowed it all, and then he pulled back to wipe at his lips. He wondered if Kushina had tasted better just because she was a woman.

Daichi was still there, flat on the floor and deliciously flushed, and if he ignored the complaining throb between his legs, he'd probably have another episode because seeing him all defenseless and sprawled like that did odd things to his chest. He carefully moved closer, pressing against the man's chest and nuzzling under his jaw gently.

'Now, I don't suppose you carry candy in your pockets…'

The redhead had swallowed audibly between two breaths, then he closed his eyes for a moment. Gods… gods, dang. This was something really intense. And powerful. And… and everything. It was just everything. He licked his lips, trying to get more of the air into his lungs. He felt a little boneless now, but he really didn't mind. Especially as his hands came back to life rather quickly.

'I'm sorry, Minato…' he muttered, bowing toward the blond a little and clamping his head in a light hug between his arms 'Next time I'll make sure to bring some.'

And just like that, he leaned down and smooched the blond. It didn't taste good at all. He had always thought that semen had one of the most vicious tastes. But maybe it was because he had only tried the people who ate bitter things. In Suna it was hard to eat anything else. Though when he thought of it, the idea of semen tasting different because of eaten food seemed a bit too funny to be real.

'Mh.' he grunted in displeasure, and deepened the kiss. No matter what, the blond was just something he wanted to kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and kiss… really, no matter what. He stroked the head and neck, then slowly, moved his hands down the chest toward the belly, petting the still clothed skin. It felt like clothes, but he liked what the touch promised already and now was his time to enjoy the blond's writhing. He felt his blood starting to boil again as he slowly broke the kiss. 'I hope that helped a bit.' There. His sweet Minato seemed to be aroused rather hard as he felt the texture of t even through his pants.

'But maybe you do have some hard candy for me there?' he said, smirking. One of his fingers had slowly sneaked inside the tight pants.

Minato didn't really think what they were doing was helping much his goal of not-getting-off-himself that he had initially set, but he couldn't help leaning into the touch and moving rather encouragingly against the redhead as he pawed and petted him. He liked being touched, he really, really liked and he wanted Daichi to touch him. Really, he did. It's just-

'Oh, fuck.' he moaned, squirming uncomfortably. His erection fund Daichi's attentions to be rather on the yes-please-very-appreciated side and twitched uncomfortably. It took everything he had to get his hand to cooperate and get the redhead by the wrist.

'…there's something wrong with me, really, something- something wrong.' Jesus, he was so twisted. He was a twisted bastard. He could have lived with that, that and his other numerous character flaws… but he had never expected masochism to be a side effect of them. 'Don't do that, Dai.' And because he didn't want the redhead to think he was rejecting him, he cuddled closer.

The redhead stared back, dumbfounded. From what he felt, Minato rather… wanted his attention. More, his hands clearly told him he needed his attention. Attention he was very willing to give. Was he doing something wrong? Hopefully, he didn't hurt him? Or maybe was the blonde hurt already? But he seemed to be healthy. Rather needy, but healthy. And looked very edible when he squirmed like that. Very, very edible. Oh, he couldn't get enough.

'Why not?' he murmured in lucrative tone as he licked the blond on the cheek and gave back the cuddle. It was a bit cheesy, but he was now so satisfied he could care less. ' Don't you want me to make you feel good?'

The blond made another little noise in response to the lick, trying not to think too much about where he would have preferred that tongue to be or how that might feel, but at least Daichi had stopped moving his hand, and he quickly took the chance to move it out of the immediate area of danger. God, he did. He so did want to have Daichi made him feel good.

'I uh… have perfectly reasonably, sound reasons.' he said, squirming a little more, then forcing himself to stay still. '-thaaat I can't share with you right now.' he added before the redhead could ask.

The redhead had only looked back with a stare that sounded no more and no less but: 'You must-be-obviously-kidding-me'. Then he reached out for the blond's pants again.

'I'm sorry, I don't think we can wait till tomorrow.' he muttered lightly and quickly squirmed his body so he could get lower. Ah, juncture point of his next right next to him seemed just right. He kissed it. 'I'm leaving forever and you will not live long with such a hard on if I will leave you like that.'

The blond made some sort of whiny sound in the back of his throat and immediately tried to squirm away.

'No, wait, Dai, really, I'll live! I swear!' This is what he got for thinking so much about rape. 'Dai, please, seriously, stop…!' And if he hadn't been so desperate, he would have thought all of this was hilarious.

The redhead licked the spot where he started sucking, and slowly moved back, though not without unhappy feelings. It felt like if he was denied something he wanted since so long and it was unfair, because he had already had the first bite. But Minato was acting like if he really was uncomfortable and he didn't know what to think of it. Maybe he was ashamed of being gay? That would explain his current and also past behavior. He petted the blond hair slowly. The light from fireplace seemed to die down at this point. 'I really don't understand this.' He muttered with saddened voice.

'But just to let you know, there won't be second chance tomorrow.'

The blond relaxed just a little bit when it became apparent he wouldn't have to fight for his virtue. Whatever shreds left of it there were left, at any rate.

'I know…' …but that only made it so much worth it! It took everything he had to not grin maniacally. Really, there was something wrong with him. Horribly, horribly. 'But there'll be others.' he said, pulling the redhead closer so he could give him a soft kiss on the lips, arms wrapping around the neck and stroking his nape a little. '…unless you don't want to?'

'I want to, I want to.' answered Daichi in a bit grumpy tone 'In fact I want to so much that I want it now. Your nicely sculpted thighs…' At that point his hands moved once again across the blond's legs, curving out the shapes at the most obvious, lustful way. '…and your perfect, round ass…' said the redhead also moving his hands up and feeling the muscles, kneading them. He leaned up a bit in a lustful smirk, but then he simply laid back down, letting go of the blond '…but it seems that for whatever reason I've been rejected once again. When is this next time you're speaking of?'

Minato jerked a little at that, more in reaction to the grope than anything. He gave the redhead a surprised look that quickly turned from shock to suspicion.

'Dai… have you been reading Icha Icha?'

'Beloved… how can you accuse me of doing something like that?' kazekage muttered, then smiled 'Of course I did. As the sentence says: 'know thy enemy'…' It was true he did it when he was much younger and he couldn't remember much of it now, but it was enough by then to make smart comments at the white haired sensei. Now he just didn't even try, because since he had known that Naruto was named after one of the characters in those books… well, it would be unfitting. 'I can't believe you read those books.'

_Beloved…?_ Now this was quickly straying into surrealism. Any moment now and he'd start looking for melty clocks draped on rocks or something.

'They are good... but please don't do that again.' he said with a little chuckle as he closed the distance to give the redhead a small kiss. 'It's just freaky.'

And maybe there would be some technical difficulties in the future. From what the redhead had said, he had the feeling Daichi had the idea Minato was supposed to be the submissive partner. That just wasn't right. The redhead accepted the kiss easily, but his sharpened stare kept actually drilling him with much more vigilance than before. Okay. Maybe he went too far. Maybe showing Minato how much he had cherished him was a bit too much. When he thought about how tight lipped he usually was, he saw that it indeed seemed a bit freaky. He just couldn't help himself. He was relaxed after an enjoyable ride and Minato looked like a cookie he wanted to eat, but couldn't. Or rather a piece of nicely tasting cheese since he didn't eat cookies.

'All right.' he said finally with a sigh as he looked away 'I won't do that again. Too bad, I thought that maybe this stuff would work on you since you like to read this…'

He looked back at the blond; waiting for a sign of breaking in, but since he didn't see it, he gave up. 'All right, Minato, if you don't want the one and only Kazekage of Suna to serve you like no one ever did before, then it's your loss. You will regret it later.' he said and slapped the man across the butt like he would slap a nice horse 'Get up, or I'll change my mind and force myself on you.'

Minato let out something suspiciously close to a squeak at the slap, and gave the hair of the man's nape a sharp tug in response, then obediently moved away. He really didn't want to, but if the redhead said it like that, there was probably a good reason for it, and it was better not to tempt his luck in such a situation. He took a moment to adjust his clothes, satisfied there didn't seem to be any obvious stains besides the dust the both had accumulated from rolling on the floors so much, and busied himself with dusting himself off without really looking at the redhead. Actually, not he was feeling a little awkward and waiting for him to say something.

But the other man didn't do anything like that. He had quietly tucked his genitals into his pants and closed all parts of clothing he was wearing. He felt a bit warmer than he was without his clothes closed, but not really. He felt the loss of the long night before them and just that… cuddling. He was not very mushy or cheesy, but in his home, until his bed had emptied, Karura always stuck to his side so he had a feeling of staying close to something, even if he cared little about her. And now, when he longed for the man, he wanted nothing else, but just to stay close and… be.

The impossibility of that wish depressed him. While dusting of his clothes he looked back at the man, but Minato didn't look back. He seemed to be busy cleaning off his own clothes. It was a wonderful meeting, but it was over too quickly... far too quickly.

Without much thinking he crept behind the man and started dusting off the coat on his back also. He didn't see anything odd with this, only later when he had actually thought about it he saw he was behaving just too intimate for both of them. But it seemed just right. Then, with a feeling of loss, he leaned lightly forward and bumped his head on one of the shoulder blades of the blond.

'You're so dirty.' he muttered and sighed. Minato smelled like floor, but it was all right. 'I hope your reasoning for all this is good.'

'Really? I hope you won't kill me for my reasoning.' The blond said a little too brightly, leaning back against the older man. Unlike Daichi, he wasn't worrying about being too intimate or clingy, he was actually glad Daichi wanted to touch him like this, and had no qualms on showing it or acting encouraging about it. 'In my defense, I think it's a perfectly logical reasoning.'

He pushed back against the man a little, feeling the warmth slowly seeping through his clothes at the contact and smiled.

'…I'm glad you came.' he said, smiling a bit as he closed his eyes. His smile widened. 'No terrible pun intended.'

'That's what worries me.' muttered the redhead back and winded both of his hands around the waist of the blonde. Now he could just grab him and take him away like a piece of furniture. Not to mention that he could just bend backward and crush his neck against the floor, which he did occasionally if he had the chance to hug the enemy. And to tell the truth he really wanted to do that. The first thing, not the latter, of course. He'd just knock him out and quietly take him away, and when the blond will wake up, he'd greet him in the morning sun of the deserted lands with a smile and listen to his reasoning. The decision of that reasoning was actually logical would be pretty irrelevant then. He felt almost too sad he couldn't just kidnap him without making another ninja war coming to life.

So instead, he had pushed at his toes a bit and laid his chin on the man's shoulder, so he could talk directly to his ear. The height difference wasn't that big, but it seemed that this house was not also old, but very crooked. A bit annoying when you didn't have high heels (though he couldn't remember if he even had boots with higher soles – they were so impractical on the desert that he had probably got rid of all he had during his younger years).

'I'm glad you had welcomed my arrival. Gods only know how much me and my son owe you.' he muttered and softly kissed the shell of Minato's ear 'Though when I think of it, you can repay me in rendering. Pun intended.'

One of his hands had slowly marched down and just pushed slightly over where the national jewels' of the Hokage should be. Be as it may, Daichi was reluctant to let go of the topic. The blond leaned back on the strong chest quite happily, blissfully ignorant of the things going through Daichi's head. Not that they wouldn't have pleased him had he been aware of them, but as they couldn't be, it was preferable for the both of them to remain unspoken. He was glad about what had happened too, that bit of quasi-sex that had transpired between them because it was now easier for him to affect the redhead's affection. Apparently what unsettled him was for it to appear out of nowhere and without much of a good reason he could pin point, as if he had to do something to deserve it.

'Don't worry about owing me anything, I did it because I wanted to.' In the end it was just as he had said, from any sort of perspective, Konoha wasn't gaining much out of having the One-tail's Bijuu more safely contained, besides helping a Nation that while officially listed an ally, they hadn't really had much contact with for several years. No, he had done this a bit for Naruto and a bit for Kushina, but mostly for himself.

He wanted Daichi to be happy. In the end, even after what he had done… He hadn't meant any of it. Or he had, but not to this degree. The nine tails was what had ruined it all. He had planned –as much of a plan as those tortuous love games he couldn't help but play could be called- to be upset for a little while, then finally 'forgive' the redhead. He had never doubted that the seal could be something he would be able to work with and eventually fix.

He had just wanted Daichi to admit he had messed up, that he had every right to be disappointed in him for sacrificing his wife for his village, and he wanted Daichi to ask for his help. As usual, he felt bad for such thoughts. As usual, it came too late, belatedly, as if when he thought about these things they were any different- and they were! He never thought about such things quite so clearly or crudely, that's why he never felt bad about them belatedly.

You should have asked for my help_. I would have helped you_ Of course he would have. Daichi and Kushina were all he had had back then, and even if they hadn't liked that, he had always loved them both. To Minato, a precious person was someone he would do anything for, regardless of any consequences. He considered saying such a thing- wanted to say it, even, but he managed to control the impulse. It would just make things sour between them again and he didn't really want to ruin the moment, for a change. Well, maybe not with such words.

'In fact, instead of paying me, why don't you concentrate on taking better care of yourself?' he asked, smiling to himself as he shivered at the taking pleasant feeling of warm breath against sensitive skin. 'You know, read a book, talk with people, plant a tree, and hey, why not take some rest? I hear it does wonders for people your age, just look at Sandaime Sa-hey!' he tried to squirm away. 'Daichi, you promised!'

Daichi had only smiled and pushed a bit harder against the man's pants.

'Oh, but Minato-kun, you said so many things about doing pleasant things that do wonders, I'm only doing one of them.' he muttered, and massaged through the material of the clothing with all his care 'Besides, trees take too much water, I don't have money for such healing methods.' Now that the man was so pleasantly spread against him it was more than a waste to not just feel up the crowned jewels at least once. It was nice to see that such a man was squirming in his hands like a harmless baby, unable to really get away. But promise was a promise, so when he had felt that the thing near his hand got really hard – he simply let go of it.

'You're right, I promised.' he murmured and blew an air into Minato's ear 'I forgot, my bad, my bad…' he backed away, though he was truly not sorry for what he did. 'I think I won't be ever able to repay you, no matter what you may say.' he said, looking at the window and tucking himself even tighter in the clothes. Sitting there was a nice feeling and a nice breather, but he was sure that if anything, there was no colder thing than the snowy night. He glanced at the blonde once again and smiled discreetly to himself. Minato looked just edible with that blush across his cheeks. 'But if you ask so nicely, I think I might tell my secretary to sign me for bungee jumping some other day.'

The blond just squirmed harder and bit on his lip to keep himself from making any sort of embarrassing sounds, though it was really hard for him. It's not that he was particularly loud, but giving out vocal cues on what he was feeling in such a case was automatic reaction for him. And despite himself knowing better, Daichi seemed to have a bit more experience than he himself did when it came to molesting other men. Right, he had just practically given himself in a silver platter for the redhead to play with, as if he didn't knew that Daichi was perfectly capable of pinning him without any sort of effort, off he went, sitting on the man's lap like the most oblivious ninja cat in the universe.

It was awful. He was straining to get the man to release him and Daichi wouldn't even budge. He didn't even pause, he just kept fondling him through his pants as if he'd been sitting there with all intentions of being agreeable.

'You are hateful. You are a hateful person.' he was sure if he hadn't been perfectly aware of Kazekage's strength to begin with, he'd find it a bit emasculating.

And speaking of emasculating… his member -which until just a moment ago had been really quite agreeable on regards of recent endeavors; and had sort of resigned itself to uncomfortable death by deflation -took the Kazekage's attentions to mean it was the moment to rise from the ashes like a phoenix or something, because if anything the blond was pretty sure it was even harder than before. As if that were possible. Just when his pants were cooking a winning argument for him on regards of evil plans vs. skilled hand jobs and how the latter would definitely would be thoroughly enjoyed by them the bastard just moved away, leaving him to bite his tongue in an effort to ward off an embarrassingly pleading noise.

He didn't have to look back to know the redhead would be giving him that insufferable smug-oozing smirk of his. His voice was dripping enough of it for the both of them. Instead he just moved away as soon as he was released and moved several feet away, sitting down again on the floor and pulling his knees to his chest just like an embarrassed teenager would have done. Not that he had much experience being embarrassed- teenager or otherwise, but this night certainly was acclimating him to the notion. He settled for giving the redhead a dirty look from above the safety bridge of his raised knees.

'You will pay for this.'

'I pretty much doubt it.' said the redhead and turned around to look at the blond openly now, as he tucked mittens on his hands. His face indeed was now more than happy with the superior look that could only be described as 'smug'. 'I leave very soon. And even if, I assure you that it was worth it.' Knowing how bad blond could be, he knew that the word 'regret' could stretch very far and become very wide, but he learned to enjoy things while they lasted. Living with a three of his enemy in love and love of his dreams had taught him that very well.

He slowly put the clothing on his hands and cracked his palms open a few times before he looked at the man again.

'Are you ready to go or should I give you a hand?'

The blond just smiled at him. As if on cue, the night was pierced by a murderous scream.

It took a seasoned soldier to understand the amount of despair-of denial- carried in the unspeakably loud volume. It carried through the still, cold night in ways it would never had had it still been snowing, but with the skies as clear as they were right now, the sound bounced off the depressions and irregularities of the landscapes. They heard it first because they were closer, but that didn't mean it didn't reach the village. By the time it did, the echoes has dampened a bit the intensity, but made the cacophony all the more eerie for its inhabitants. Minato wouldn't have been surprised if it had been enough to cause a small avalanche.

Apparently the snow was either too solidified after the last storm, or it wasn't as loud as he thought it really was. However, he couldn't see how it could be so.


	35. Chapter Thirty Five: Song to say goodbye

In the Hyuuga compound, the room to the only son of Hyuuga Hizashi and Hotaru slammed open, a terrified looking heiress closing it immediately behind her back.

'Neji bro!' From her arms, a teary eyed baby Hanabi extended her arms to the older boy, an hiccupy 'Bro' whined through trembling lips. Neji, of course, was all on his two legs, wielding an empty scroll in defense, as he couldn't find anything better closely (his kunais were nicely tucked in his closet out of pedantry) and he had already activated a byakugan due the stress. However the source of the bloody murdering animal that woke him up, still stood unknown.

'Do not worry, Hanabi-sama, Hinata-sama.' he muttered as he had quickly extended his hands for both of the girls, hugging the younger closely and the older a bit further away, only because if he did the same, Hanabi would have been crushed deadly 'There's no danger close by, I hadn't identified any.'

And he was glad he didn't because if anything, it was hard to pretend his knees didn't shake even now. Hinata nodded, keeping the squirming baby mostly on her arms as she knew it would be difficult for Neji to fight if he also needed to take care of such a small baby, and even if the agonized screams were terrifying, Neji had said it was nowhere close. And Neji was the most talented ninja his age she knew, if he said so, it had to be so. Even so, she only felt a bit better when the three of them were huddled under her cousin's blanket, a mostly soothed Hanabi sleepily trying to gnaw on Neji's shiny brown hair despite the ongoing ruckus.

#+#+#+#+#+#

At the Akimichi grounds, second in command Akimichi Choza looked out from the impromptu two A.M. snack, almost dropping that delicious looking pickle jar when the screaming went off. He let out a sigh of relief, safely depositing it on the counter and turning to the woman on the table a concerned look.

'Maybe I should go take a look.' His beautiful wife, who hadn't really stopped smearing the golden substance over the delicately toasted bread save for giving a distracted look to the window just shook her head.

'I'm sure they will call you if you are needed, honey.' she said, licking the equally-named sticky substance off her fingers. And if Setsuna knew anything about the Hokage, that was that such happenings on the last day of Kazekage's presence were not mere casualty. If anything, someone would be on tears tomorrow. She wouldn't be surprised if it were the Hokage himself, after the elders chewed through him a bit.

'Are you sure? That sounds-' She closed the argument with a deftly placed smearing knife that sailed all the way to the open jar resting on the counter.

'I'm sure, sweetheart. Bring the pickles, will you? This sandwich needs a bit of a kick.'

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Pops!'

Even if he had been able to sleep through the insane screaming that had started a moment ago, even if he had been able to mostly block out his wife going on and on over duty and marriage and how he was a good for nothing that wouldn't fight until the enemies would be already knocking at the door and how she should have listened to her mother and married that other guy she had dated while at the academy (etcetera, etcetera, etcetera) he would have never been able to ignore his firstborn. It was two in the morning. Shikamaru wouldn't be up and not complaining about it if there weren't perfectly good, valid causes for it.

'What is it?' he asked immediately jumping from the bed and grabbing his son. Said son had decidedly marched into their room with his hand firmly planted over his eyes to prevent himself the traumatizing sight of what he'd seen the last time he'd dared to venture at his parents' bedroom this late at night. That he had gotten in at all after the trauma that had been to go through that explanation was only testimony to how wrong things were.

'The deer, dad. They are-'

'The deer?'

'They're acting all weird again!'

'Again?' with one look at his wife, Shikaku walked out of the nicely heated room to the considerably less heated living room and went to the observatory. It was a mid-length telescope set for them to observe when the birth season was in and the normally pleasant deer were at its most hostile. They just pointed at the more well-lived areas and if they noticed some female having trouble, a team of vet-nin would go help the situation. What he saw through the lens left him speechless.

'What are they doing?' the dark-haired female asked behind him, he barely reacted when his son complained about her being too loud and his mother retaliated with a quick swipe at the unbound dark head. 'Shikaku, don't just gape, tell me right away what's-' before she could finish, the man just moved away and gave her a chance to have a look for herself. She gave him a suspicious look before bending slightly to gaze upon the thickly furred animals.

There didn't really seem to be anything amiss with them, save for the fact they were all wide awake, letting out loud, mournful cries and… Yoshino slowly looked away from the telescope, turning to give her husband and son an incredulous look.

'…are they crying?'

#+#+#+#+#+#

Back at the land of the Suna where all ninjas went grey-haired from worry about where the heck their beloved Kazekage was taken (or they were not, that depended on the political views), half of the ANBU army had almost jumped through the roof from the surprise, and the rest had quickly armed with shurikens, looking around for any monster going at them. Baki, who had currently got back with the group of kids, had suddenly found himself to have hands full of Temari and Kankuro, while the youngest of the three had only walked out of his room, staring at one point with wide eyes. The sound called to him like a bell to a cat.

'What's going on?' asked Chiyo, obviously not sleeping either. It was too early t go to sleep if there was at least one person up. And knowing that Daichi was somewhere with the blond brat didn't make her sleep any easier. She looked at the young Hatake, expecting an answer. But the youngster didn't look up.

'What's going on?' asked Baki, not really knowing if it was safer to drop the kids and arm himself or if to held them tight and believe that his companions would defend them for him. Both choices would leave a bad taste if the Kazekage would ever know about them. He looked at the young Hatake, expecting an answer. But the youngster didn't look up.

Naruto, who had finally ran out of yellow crayon to help Gaara decorate the room they had decided to make a bit nicer by drawing on ¾ of its expanse (including somehow the roof) just wiped the leftover yellow substance on his pants and then tugged at his babysitter's pants, leaving a happy yellow child-sized handprint on it.

'Hey, Kashi.' he said, snigging lightly, then rubbing at his nose 'Why is Ero-sennin crying like that, did daddy cover up the wall holes on the onsen again when he wasn't looking?'

'I… don't think so.' said Kakashi slowly, like if he couldn't believe his ears. But it was more of a shock, because the surprise was gone with the wind, unlike the surprise of the other ninjas around him 'I think he just had met a critical moment in his life.'

He was not sure if it was even true, but if anything, he hoped that Naruto would stop asking now. Because he had quite a nice idea of what could have made his diva of writing wallow like that and he didn't want to check for the right answer.

#+#+#+#+#+#

In the cabin, the Hokage's smile just widened as the screaming didn't seem to give off any signs to stop, especially at the added secondary noise that, while noticeable and oddly familiar, was too drowned by the comparatively lauder screaming to be properly made out.

'…are you so sure, Daichi-kun?' the blond purred, giving him a perfectly loving and affectionate look. It was almost cat-like in its self pleasure… It also was a good reminder that for some reason, cats thought one of the strongest show of affection was to leave a mangled carcass somewhere where their humans would inevitable step on it while bare footed. 'I can be very inventive when I put my mind into it.'

The redhead had looked at him for a moment, but then whipped his head around, trying to allocate the source of the scream. It was so sudden in the dead of the night it was hard to keep up his attention to both them and Minato, even if he could have sworn a moment ago that nothing would tear his eyes from the blond.

'I know you can.' he said a bit absent mindedly as he had crept up to the window to look outside. There really wasn't much visible through such dim light. And oddly, this scream sounded so familiar, but he couldn't put a finger on what it really was… unless it was what he thought it might have been, and he wouldn't like it if it really was the white-haired sensei of Minato. Because it meant that now his bones were roasted if he couldn't hide before the dawn.

Because then it would mean that something went really, really wrong. And that he was going to be blamed for it.

'…but you will be merciful and you will be kind enough to not torture me too much.' Because he knew that if anything, there was never a successful 100% mercy when it came to the blond. Not now, then later, as it came. 'What's going on?' he asked finally, once again trying to see anything through the window. He really didn't like how it sounded.

'Ah, Daichi-kun.' the blond hummed contentedly, following with his eyes as the redhead finally lost the smug look and started looking properly concerned for his own future. 'What makes you think I have a hand in such a dreadful situation, I wonder…'

'Because you don't look very much concerned about what sounds to be a sign of a monster rising from the dead.' said the redhead and considered for a moment opening the window but decided against it. Instead, he had sat on his knees and started searching for his handy kunais set. 'And knowing that I'm sure you recognize the sound.'

The blond just smiled innocently.

'Well… I might or might have not accidentally commented to sensei how that hot red-haired Suna kunoichi from your troupe might run out of your watchful glare and go take a relaxing bath at the onsen we were in just a few days ago…' For some reason, at the mention of 'wild, untamed, crazy-fun, experienced kunoichi' his sensei had seemed to forget that the only recognizable members of the Kazekage's group with red hair amounted to two. And he was sharing breathing space with one of them, just as he supposed his own son was with the other.

'Red-haired kunoichi?' asked the redhead 'What red-haired kunoi-…'

And the knowledge pretty much hit the Kazekage as he did a quick look through his memory of names he took with himself. As much as redheads weren't uncommon in Suna, they were really not common when it came to people he was being surrounded with. Daichi paled three times more, while the kunai he had grabbed had became slick with sweat.

'You didn't.' he said, then looked up like if expecting a face of the Minato's supervisor emerging from there at any second 'You did.' But when there was no monster, he had managed to smile through that. 'And he fell for that?'

'I might or might have not also thrown an inspiring picture, Kazekage-sama.' the blond said as he batted dark lashes in the redhead's direction. He hadn't really gotten it yet, had it? It took a moment of rummaging through his vest before producing the photograph and tossing it at the older man.

The colors were a bit faded, but in the end, it was supposedly from Suna, right? The sun tended to fade most bright colors, but for all he could see at least the proof that it didn't work on all bloodlines was both on the photo and in the man in front of him. In the photography there was a young woman apparently around Baki's age, wearing the somewhat more conservative style of dressing Sunanians burdened their women with, thought the effect was somewhat ruined by the wide slit on the dresses skirt. Sunanins and their oxymoron's, thought kunoichi did need certain leeway's to be able to fight, right?

The scrolls hanging from her side revealed her as a puppeteer. It was only too bad sensei had been more interested in the peeks of creamy tights instead of what was hanging right next to them.

'…and here I thought my fixation with redheads was a sick, masochistic fetish of my own, it seems in the end, I might have just learned it from sensei as well…' he said as he got up, zipping his vest closer. He wanted to be closed when Daichi finally got it. In the background, as the intensity of the despairing screams lessened, the secondary source of the noise could be more easily identified.

'Oh ho ho ho ho ho!'

Daichi had stared at it for an incredulously long time in silence. After that, he had strangely wobbled, like if he was about to fall down right on his face, but somehow, he had managed to hold the composure.

'Where…' he muttered, then swallowed with a hard time 'Where did you get this?...' he asked. Now it was more of a question what had really happened to the man and if he hadn't accidentally been blinded. Normally no one would've, but Jiraiya was an 'ahtisth' so he could've been damaged by it. Not that his lust for whatever was naked didn't deserve a good kick. He folded the picture and hid it quickly in his clothes. Knowing the times it was done and the pose it was taken, the picture was almost pornographic. He decided he didn't want to know.

'Are you sure you want to face the consequences of what have you managed to do?'

'Told you your granny liked me better.' the blond said, smiling a little to himself. It took him a moment to think about it, then he burst out laughing, the somewhat manic edge to it helping nothing his image of blue-eyed, golden-haired innocent angel. 'What do you mean by that? if anything, he will think it was your idea and you talked me into it… but really, sensei should have known better than feeding your killer alcoholic almond brainfreeze to both my babies, wasn't that mean of him?' Seeing no reaction from the redhead, he edged closer and patted a roughened cheek lightly, leaning to give the man a peck on the lips.

'Hey, Daichi-kun, have I told you how adorable you look when you are horrified?' He didn't wait for an answer before turning around and running out of the cabin. If he was lucky, he'd make it to the Kazekage's residence where he could count on Kakashi and possibly Baki to try and stop Daichi from murdering him. If he was lucky, Daichi would even remember to finish putting back his clothes and have some extra seconds to remember why murdering him was a bad idea.

'You…' started the redhead as the blond was happily skipping away through the snows, like a comet with golden tail 'You!...' He wanted to chase after him, but the wall of cold that hit him right in the face when he stepped out into the snow had successfully tamed his speed. More, everything he had left opened, screamed at him to be closed and he concentrated all his might on doing so. It didn't help very much but it was at the same time – much better. When he looked up, Minato was farther away, being now only a spark on the darkened sky (he'd never call this abomination of a cloudy night a starry night). He licked his lips quickly, tasting the man on them, and covered his face with the coat he had legally (or, it seemed so) borrowed.

How could he run like that in the open, he had no idea.

'You will catch a cold.' he muttered to himself, as there was no way the blond could hear him, then he smiled sarcastically to himself. He had to be going crazy if he had worried about such trivial things right now. He had turned back to the little hut and, despite the bad feeling it gave, he took some of the snow with himself to put off the dying fire. 'Yes. That's it.' he muttered as the wood went loud with a hiss. Then he had looked through the window. He had been there for the first time, but he knew how to read the path from the sky, so he was not worried about himself.

His stomach had only seemed to weight more and more with every passing step as he had closed the door and marched through the shining white substance. The snow looked like diamonds, laying freely on the street, wasting away. To him, it was so.

'At least no one will complain if we will take some of it with us.' he muttered to himself as he had stepped along the long line of the steps that surely had to be Minato's. No ninja could leave such a trait if he didn't run as fast as the thunder. The coming of tomorrow was ineluctable. 'I'm back.'

He said when he had entered the house. The smell of the coffee had hit his nostrils right away and it was a bad thing. The thing that his ANBUs were now tightly circling the blond who was drinking it and trying to shoot him with questions, was however, disputable.

'Father.' muttered Kankuro and walked up to him, as always, a bit reluctant to show any affection. He had greeted him with a stroke on the head, which was also taken with indecisive stare.

'Why are you not sleeping?' he asked and glanced at the ANBU. They seemed to be also torn between what was happening 'Don't let him go, I'm just an illusion. Interrogate him all you can.' So now, some things were clear.

'Off to bed with you.' he said and picked up the boy, dragging him back to his room. 'We're still a few hours too early before setting off.'

Kankuro had only nodded. Good boy, he was. The blond just grinned, lifting his mug in a mock-toast gesture.

'Oh yes please, do interrogate me some more~' apparently, only Baki was willing to believe him when he came back on his own and told him he decided to run ahead before Daichi decided to try and strangle him. 'Interrogate me with more delicious coffee…!'

Oh, it had been a joy to break into Chiyo's secret stash and then defile the delicious blend with the amount of sugar he put on practically all things he ate. He could have sworn the taller ANBU was weeping under her Thorny Devil's mask, which only prompted him to add another fat spoonful on the dark liquid. Apparently that Daichi couldn't have any also meant that his bodyguards also couldn't, which didn't really surprise him at all. 'How are Naruto and Kakashi-kun, Baki-san?' he asked pleasantly as he stirred the dark liquid 'I hope he wasn't too much a handful.'

'No, we had a pleasant feast in the bakery, thank you for your invitation.' said the man and looked at the blond with still face. He was only a mere soldier and it didn't really matter that he was a personalized nanny for the three of the crowned kids, because when the Kazekage or Chiyo went berserk, everyone got their right share of beating. So , he saw no evil, heard none of it, and especially smelled none of it. Just like ANBU never did (though he was sure that coffee addicts, and he knew there were some in the group were now quietly wishing for the thunder to strike the house with a bit of justice). 'The boy took his protégée with him as I walked him to your residence. I wanted to be sure they were safe. I had also enjoyed reading them both a nighttime story. Thanks to that everyone went to sleep very quickly.'

Or they pretended they did. He didn't really understand it, but he saw that kids from Konoha didn't really get on with their stories and if they did then it meant they really didn't want to know what was going to happen next. It was disappointing, because he liked the parts about evil showing its fangs.

'Or they almost did, I had to tuck down one of the last ones standing.' said Daichi as he walked back into the kitchen. 'Enjoying not your own coffee, Hokage-sama?'

The blond just smiled sweetly at him. If he didn't know any better he said his pockets had just started crying. Sunanin didn't use words like 'feast' lightly.

'I think it needs more sugar.' he said as he reached for the spoon to add yet another spoonful. 'This blend is too strong for me, what with uh… what's it's name? The little seedy thing that looks like a flower.' he shrugged, not really caring for the name, yet aware of that tingly taste meant. It was almost reaching the overly sweet consistence of syrup by now, but just seeing the security members squirm in horror at what he was doing to perfectly good coffee was enough to make it worthy. 'You have everything prepare for the morning?'

'Star Anise. That's how it's called.' said the redhead and for a moment glanced at the cup with both feeling of longing and anxiety as he would never drink from such an oversweetened cup himself 'And we should be almost ready. The water supplies should be only filled by morning.'

He was not asking if it really was – the unwritten rule of his laws said that he didn't question of something was done and the ninjas didn't question him back. And if it happened to be different from otherwise, then it was a problem. But he would rather not think about unpleasant things now.

'You can go, I'll have an eye on him.' he had said finally waving the ANBU off. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he had heard someone weeping. Must've been his imagination only.

'Oh, hi Kazekage-sama!' the blond greeted as the older man slipped to sit in front of him. 'Nice to see you made it back safely.'

'I'm also glad that I did.' said Daichi, now nicely showing his usual clothes as he had got ridden of the additional ones as the insides were just warm enough for his tastes. 'Though I wonder what would happen to you If I didn't. My ANBUs wouldn't just sniff that cup, I'm sure.' he glanced to the side. 'Yes, Baki, you too can go.'

'Just please come back when I start screaming for help.' the blond added as he waved the younger man's broad back as he dutifully retreated into the house. It was a joke on his regards, mostly. Anyone else might as well have meant it perfectly well. He wasn't sure he wouldn't have to call Baki on it seriously in just a few more hours, though. 'So, I see you are having fun stealing solidified water.' he said, deciding to have mercy on the redhead and finish his hellishly sweetened syrup. 'If you need more scrolls to carry it, you can take some from me."

'Why thank you for your support.' said the redhead, and leaned back on his chair 'I'll be sure to ask for more if I will find need for them. There's never enough of water in my village, you know that.' And while they were at the topic of stealing, he could go back and bring the coat of the blond, but he didn't feel like moving. Not at all. 'At least we know what to do with it.' Then he glanced at the cup and put forth one of his hands. 'I can't stand it. Give me some.'

'No.' the blond stood up to run some water on the mug he had been using, then left it at the sink. 'But if you are nice, I promise I will tell your ninja you did have it.'

Daichi had only frowned at that and let his hands cross along the usual pose.

'That would amount into nothing but the uproar of how I mistreat myself.' he said, watching the mug being washed away once again with longing stare. 'So I don't think I will be nice.'

'I'm sure you are very worried about your ninja telling you how disappointed they are on you not following explicit doctor's orders.' the blond replied, turning around to smile at the older man. As if anyone below Chiyo's rank of status and familiarity would dare.

'If I had to listen to what they have to say about my way of living, I think I'd spend the remaining half on listening to them.' was the answer as the redhead once again leaned back into the chair and looked at the window. It was still snowing, but now, it seemed like if it happened in entirely different world. The blond leaned back against the counter, his pose relaxed in a way it never managed to be when he was in the company on his own council.

'You should take better care of yourself, you know.'

'I do.' was the plain answer. Because, wasn't he? He didn't drink the darned coffee, didn't drink alcohol, kept on sleeping nicely and stressed much less when the aggressive pet of Gaara went into the cage. 'I think it's you who should take more care of yourself. Do you want to catch cold on such weather?'

'This is nice weather where I was born, Daichi-kun.' the blond said with another easy smile 'I bet you'd love the mountains down to the south in winter. Maybe we should have a meeting there, wouldn't that be nice? We'd even have to cross plenty of lakes by boat, just to make the experience more enjoyable.' He hadn't seen Daichi get seasick in a while. That It had been almost ten years since that a while was a bit too complicated a notion to want to contemplate for far too long, because he felt the same. He always did.

'I mean it, though. Next time you want to work yourself into a coma, it would be nice for you to remember now you are all your country and your son have as far as safety goes.' It would be nice if for a change Daichi learned to take better care of himself. he didn't have very high hopes on regards of the topic, but now at least he had better reasons for it.

'Thanks for the offer but I think that I had enough of boat riding for my whole life when I was young.' Even if the ride sounded nice at some kind of level, he knew that being seasick would easily kill the joy of the whole memento. 'And I work myself dead because that's all I can give to my village. As you said, there's nothing else that could support the village.'

'Yes, but I'm sure your villagers will appreciate a lot more a Kazekage that works a little less and is a little bit more alive to keep the overweight weaver from masticating either their underage wives and even underage-erer children, don't you? I know I would be.' he added despite himself, one hand reaching for his necklace and stroking one of the delicate silver cylinders, his eyes moving to some point to the far off side. 'And I'm sure Gaara-sama also would. Having voices not your own in your head is a lot less fun that one would think.'

Daichi had almost frowned at the mentioning of that. Voices in your own head. He knew something about it. Sure, he left it behind as he had went through his schizoid sleeping pills episodes, but he still kept on taking the old lighter with himself almost everywhere. Old habits died hard. Instead, he had smiled knowingly and leaned forward this time.

'Why, Hokage-sama, you sound like if you were worried.' he said and grinned 'Be assured, I know how to take care of myself. But if you insist so much, I'll think about taking a secretary or something like that.' Which was a waste of money and nobody really signed documents as good as he himself did, but Minato was here and once he was not with him there will be no supervising. 'Why are you going out with this so suddenly?'

The blond still didn't look at him, making an odd face to whatever he was seeing on the spot in the wall he was looking at. No, he wasn't worried. Daichi did know how to take care of himself, which didn't mean he was good at it. It just meant that he was in less danger of an assassination that he was of making himself sick with some other thing.

'You are leaving soon.' he said, finally turning to give the man a more normal smile, fingers still trailing over his necklace lightly. 'Maybe I'll be lucky and you'll be bored enough to think back on what I'm saying now and realize how right I am.' If he didn't say it now, when else? It's not like if he'd send anything too glaringly obvious in a letter that might get intercepted.

'Oh, stop playing a cutesy worried maiden.' was the scathing answer. Which he really meant to say, only with much less irony, but they were kind of surrounded by ears, so he couldn't really say it nicer. Because the way Minato worried about him made him want to get up and smooch the blond until he'd get the ideas of him dying from the lack of sleep out of his pretty angelic head. 'I have so many things to be worried about that I'll leave my safety to my soldiers.'

But he had gotten up anyway and when he had finally closed the distance between them, he gave the light poke at the man's nose. A very petty gesture, but as far as things went, everybody knew their relationship was intimate enough to allow occasional flicker of a touch here and there. They were teammates before after all.

'But if you're so winded up, why don't you come with me and see that I'm not suicidal?'

'Oh, but I'm ever so good at being cutesy!' the blond piped, cupping one cheek on his palm and batting his eyes at the older man in and overexaggerated manner. He had the oddest urge to lean over and peck the redhead again. Really, just a peck and nothing else. As he was so close, though… 'Don't let your council see it.' he whispered quickly, ducking his head down for a moment to let his hair hide his lips, and then back up, careless as ever.

He didn't want anyone seeing the tattoo's on Daichi's skin, and he didn't care about how the redhead planned to explain, on in its case, hide them. It's not that he distrusted Suna council any more than he did his own, but he just didn't want anyone close to those symbols. He knew it was provably paranoid of him- it had been designed to sustain heavier damaged than just getting some scars tissue or cuts over the designs, that's why he had been careful to follow the chakra paths as closely as lack of aiding bloodline limit allowed him to.

'It's not like if you need babysitting so badly, right? If the need arises, she should be able to cane you into shape.' If anything were to happen, he trusted Chiyo's medical and seal-based knowledge. Daichi had only rose his nose up higher a bit and zipped up his shirt to the tilt of its collar.

'I can zip myself up, I don't need a nanny.' he said and he walked away to the chair, also making his collar standing up. If anything, he couldn't send a clearer message, to both of the sentences. And besides, standing too close to the blond also trained his patience, to the point of changing training to straining. If he could, he'd just kept him glued to his side, so he could hug him all the time. He still wondered how will it be possible to get back to the life where he didn't exist for whole long months? He didn't know.

Minato couldn't help smiling at the older man's antics, another somewhat unusual wave of affection hitting him. It was really too bad Daichi had to leave in just a few hours. He had stayed the longest he ever had in Konoha since making Kazekage and he didn't think he had seen him more than just a few days because he had been sick and drugged out of his ass from chakra poisoning. At least the seals were set and balanced, and thankfully mostly in places that he didn't think the redhead would let many too close to.

He listened to the almost-silent going and coming of the ninja finishing last minute packing and arranging all of their things, giving a distracted look to the sink. He idly wondered if the stains that strange fruit thing the old lady had gotten out of God's knows where were removable. Which reminded him…

'Hey, sensei's been silent for a while and Chiyo-sama hasn't come back yet, maybe I should go find her?' It was cold, and the gray-haired woman wasn't exactly a youngster anymore.

'I'd worry about your sensei more. Or I wouldn't.' said Daichi with idyllic look on his face. If one could be less worried about his own grandmother, it was hard to match with Daichi's face. He was sure that after all that Jiraiya had to go through was something that he deserved for wanting to get between them. He lived for far too long to have a supervisor and after all he went through it was simply unfair that the man still acted like if he had any claim over Minato's virtue. And as for Chiyo, she was not an average ninja, so he was sure that even if he had managed to get her the roles would change pretty soon. 'But if you want, go looking for her. I'm sure she is hiding around here.'

'Sensei will be all right, he's made of stronger stuff.' he said offhandedly, though it really was a wonder, all that quietness. One would have expected to already have barreled in, knocking over jounin and ANBU to get to their leader and murder him with his bare hands. He also hadn't expected Baki to have left his babies safe at home without him actually having returned their leader as he had promised. He wondered if Naruto had been extra hyper due lack of sleep. Combine that with three extra children high on sugar and he wasn't even sure he wanted to know.

Either way, he probably should. The weather wasn't really fit for old ladies… On the other hand… As soon as she came back, he wouldn't have Daichi all for himself like this. As much 'all for himself' as he could have him in the circumstances, but still…

'Nah.' he said, walking back to his seat and leaning over, resting his head on his arms and smiling. 'I'd rather hear you talk a bit.' _Talk to me_ 'So, how many people have you traumatized this year?'

Daichi had smiled at that and got up to make himself a tea. He was not really thirsty, but he still smelled coffee in the air and it seemed that the man indeed, wanted to stay around for a bit longer. And, of course, he could get used to the water wasting when it came to loosened schedule of drinking. In Konoha they could drink all the time. 'Myself' he wanted to say at first, but he had only smiled at that. Wouldn't it sound stupid? Instead, he took a tea bag and glanced at the blonde.

'I must admit that I had a year full of work when it comes to this.' he said and took the water. It was still warm from Minato's administrations near the kitchen 'The old man at Iwagakure really has problems with the borders. He says that every stone on the eastern land of the stone desert should belong to Rock country. I think he exaggerates. I sent him a pack of scorpions as a present on the national day of taking care of pets. The messenger said that the result were priceless.'

He smiled at that. Pity he couldn't see it. The bag in his cup had hissed as he added the water, adding the brown color to the transparent liquid.

'Besides, I visited the new Mizukage. You do know him, of course? The new one, not the old one.' he said as he had marched up to the table and sat down on his chair. 'It really was hard to meet up with him. I have tight schedule and he barely shows up – it's said that nobody saw his face even. And knowing him, I think it's not far from the truth.'

He sipped from the cup and looked at the blond.

'He wanted to address the problem of war in the Rain Country. I don't know why he brings up such topic, and I'm not interested in such a small petty country, so I told him that Mizu still didn't export the promised water to irrigate the old river on the borders. It's obvious that the problem stays dead and untouched till today.' Another sip. He looked at the blond, listening to him and smiled internally. It was a sweet moment, a moment he cherished dearly and enjoyed without a question. How good it would be to talk like that every day, drink tea together, wake up together… another sip.

'And I had also addressed a few missing nins.' he said once again, not tearing his eyes from the blue blue gaze of the man in front of him 'Have you heard about how the Seven swords had diminished lately? I swear, the Mizu doesn't even care about their criminals showing up at the doors of the other nations. Though I really don't know what would their man have to do in the Suna…' A breath. Another sip. 'We're sandy country after all.' he said absent mindedly 'It was addressed, as far as the… other noticed criminals. Nothing big, though, we live at the peaceful town. Or we try, if you know what I mean.'

With Gaara everything really was peaceful around. Having Shukaku at the side really had some advantages after all (if it only wasn't for that having such a monster was equaling in having even bigger problems). He laughed and sipped from the cup, covering the missing parts of the speech.

Maybe it would be wise to address the fact that one of the most dangerous missing nins from Konoha, the one from the legendary Sennins had also been seen at his borders and more – tried to contact him at some point, but he smelled troubles and if anything, he didn't want to bother any other nation with it. After all, Orochimaru was a ninja known widely for joining the strange new group, the Akatsuki and that would mean that Suna, being so disliked, would be accused of trying to cheat out of the national agreements. So far, he made sure that no contact had reached him and he hoped it was enough for the criminal to move on. It was not a good time for Suna to have problems with a person of his range.

'I see you and Tsuchikage-sama get along as well as ever.' the younger man said with a small chuckle. The man was famous for hating most ninja under the age of thirty, and he somehow doubted he'd stopped hating Daichi now the man had finally hit the mark. He still remembered how the older man had complained the man had purposely poisoned him the first time he had gone to Rock country as Kazekage. Kushina had laughed so hard at this the older redhead had tossed his desk at her and hit him instead when she dodged.

He shook his head at mentioned Mizukage - no, he didn't. He had gotten a few documents and exactly one invite to come to discuss matters in the past six years, but other than answering the documents and excusing himself, he hadn't really done much on regards of it.

'I haven't met with other villages in forever… The council's been really pressing me on regards of that.' he said, reaching for his headband and pulling it down to his neck. It was hot in here, and he had already unzipped his vest when he'd come back. 'I probably should do something about that…'

But that left what to do with his son, who he was just now daring to leave alone (with Kakashi). He would never be able to leave the village without him, and after the whole mess with Cloud, he didn't really like the idea of taking him somewhere without tight security. How had a ninja gotten in a house such as that of the Hyuuga was a bit traumatizing on regards of what amounted to effective security when it came to the safety of one's' baby.

'Oh…' he suddenly smiled. 'Dai, the Tsuchikage's been really insistent about meeting and rearranging a lot of documents and I've been blowing him off since forever. And then I go visit you and then you come for like, a month.' he grinned at the older man. 'He'll hate us.'

The redhead had only smiled at that.

'I'm sure he will be overjoyed to hear that it has happened… Minato.' he muttered, then slowly put the cup down on the table 'Please, don't address me as if I was your lover or something. You keep doing that since I came here.' And there was not a sign of laughter on his face. If anything, it could be taken as a joke, but in ninja world not a single word was as light as it could be. It was better to not give anyone clues. 'And if you won't visit him soon, he will blow a pipe. You know how bad he can be.'

Obviously, Daichi didn't even think for once about Naruto. He had personal nanny (a brother of a dead wife, how much more personal it could get?) and he was not afraid to leave his kids alone. Everyone knew that if anyone had decided to harm his youngest wouldn't go out of it alive and as it came to the two older ones, he didn't care enough to make their death a good threat. Because when one needed a heir, it was enough to have one kid alive. The Kazekage was not known of having a tender relationships with any of them. The blond just shrugged, smile widening.

'I've always called you like that, Kazekage-sama, when did you become so sensitive? Age must be getting to you.' It was sort of sad, how true that was. Minato, despite lacking a bit on etiquette thanks to the way he was raised, was a rather polite person. He addressed everyone by their proper titles, but the familiarity he had shared with the redhead had caused a slip or two over the time. At least he had never accidentally called the man 'sempai' in front of anyone.

The only time he remembered doing so he'd been with Kushina and she had gone on and on about what she called his 'sempai complex' or something like that, and it had been humiliating enough he had learnt to pretty much repress those little accidents. He'd still practically given the Raikage a heart attack on his first summit when he'd started to fight with Daichi over something he didn't even remember what it was about right now and delivered a terrible faux pas by balling the treaty Daichi had been trying to get him to sign, throwing it at his head and saying 'Because you are an imbecile, Dai, you are an imbecile, so talk to me after you stop being one.'

Then again, maybe the shocking part was that Daichi hadn't killed him right after those words left his mouth. And he had apologized pretty profusely to the redhead after…

'Lighten up. You worry too much about nimieties.'

Daichi had only smiled at that, though it was visible that the smile was strained and not very sincere. Age, he said. He didn't really care. He really didn't. Only he did and when it came to Minato it was the worst, because he cared the most. He wished he could get back to the bathroom and actually check if he hadn't got any new wrinkles. It was funny, for him as a male to think about it so much but he couldn't help it. Minato was young and he had so much better possibilities to stay it when he was gone. He sipped at his tea again. It had ended pretty quickly, apparently.

'I just want to remind you that were not alone here.' he said and turned his head a bit. As pretty as it seemed, ANBU never slept.

'See, you can be famous too, even if you don't have actual talent!'

The blond was blissfully oblivious of the things going on through his friend's head. He never really meant any of the comments he said, because after all, Daichi was barely three years older than him, and that wasn't much of a different at all, or at least to him it wasn't. Kushina had been almost a year older than him as well, and he'd liked to poke fun at her on the matter as well. He did notice the strain on the smile, however, so he decided to be more careful about how he addressed the older man. If he worried about it, he probably had a reason to, even if he didn't really see what reason could that be.

'Maybe we should just make a summit. We haven't had one since the end of the war, and it would be easier to just get everyone together, don't you think?' And besides, politics without the immediate pressure of war? It could take days. Daichi and him could hang out as much as they wanted. Daichi had almost laughed at that. Kage summit? Sounded like a brilliant idea, though a bit too brilliant.

'It's a nice idea, indeed.' he said and leaned over. This sounded like a good thing to show up at and to look up to. Though with the old Tsuchikage and Raikage the things could get a bit risky. Not to mention the sufficient Daimyo. 'But why would you call the summit if nothing's happening? You need a great reason to make one and the situation is stable.'

'It would be faster than all of us going individually, don't you think?' the blond said, still smiling unconcernedly. 'And we can all save us the issue of the endless letters of the other kages warning us about plotting behind one's back, and do on, and so forth.'

He didn't even read those anymore, though he knew Setsuna was building a book she called 'the best of the kages' and that whenever Sarutobi-sensei had a look on it he laughed until he choked on his own pipe. He was sure she probably had gotten some really interesting ones the past weeks.

'If you say setting a date with Mizukage-sama is such a hard issue, then it would also be more convenient for him, don't you think? And if three of us already agree…' What kind of Kage would be crazy enough to miss the majority of the neighboring nations meeting? 'Though Tsuchikage-sama might be desperate enough to accept by now…'

'You forget about the Raikage.' said the redhead and sighed as if the name had weighted more than it seemed 'He is so busy with his little village that he won't accept just any invitation. Unless you want to push him near the wall.' And that would be easy, so incredibly easy with what's happened along with kidnapping of the little Hyuuga heiress, but at the same time was so… dirty. At the sole thought, Daichi had smiled wider. 'This would be an exciting appointment.'

A muscle on the blond's cheek twitched for a second.

'I still can't believe that they had the gall to demand a, how they put it? A 'satisfaction', even after Mr. ambassador was caught red handed at trying to steal Hinata-sama.' No, wait, he could believe that: What he couldn't believe was that the Hyuugas had seriously considered it just to avoid the scandal of it all. It was only too bad Minato had heard about it and barreled into the situation in a way that would have made Kushina proud.

They might have wanted to avoid the scandal, but Minato, as he emphatically put it, didn't give a fuck about it. He didn't care who found out about it. In fact, he didn't really care about Thunder in general and about Cloud in particular, so if the Raikage had any interest in any sort of business in the future, he would do well to remember the Yondaime Hokage had a son the girls' age and he didn't think he'd feel very partial to visits from that village.

'Try to steal a baby girl, get it wrong and you want a consolation prize for it? One of my best jounins at that!' It was clear the matter in general still irritated him. Minato was a person who really took a lot of effort to anger. The problem was that once he reached that stage, it was even harder for him to forget about it.

'I still can't believe that someone didn't die because of what you did there.' answered the redhead and looked into the cup. There was a sip or two left but he didn't turn to it yet. Liquid was a gift from gods and as everything that was given, it tasted better when it was tasted slowly. 'Your uproar reached the borders of the Suna, even if the Thunder Country lies in a completely different direction.'

And it was hard to ignore, because if anything, the life of Suna had depended mostly on what the neighborhood said. And as Iwagakure had simply turned its back at them, he could only depend on Konoha. So all the sonaring had been turned to what was happening there. Usually he was not eager to intervene at such problems, especially if the where kidnapping thing didn't touch his cold little heart the slightest – kids were being kidnapped every day, the more unique they were they quicker they were gone – some people were even stupid enough to try to steal Gaara. He didn't even have to check how it had ended, it was enough that Gaara was always back after being gone, usually covered in lots and lots of not his own blood.

But the way the Hyuuga family had made their deals and how the blond reacted sounded like a war, and he really didn't want to have another one so closely by. But he waited till the last minute with his voicement and when he decided to speak up, the scandal was suddenly gone.

'They tell yet another legend about you because of that. The Yellow Fury strikes through the night, protecting little children from the bad fate, so no worry, thy mother who had lost thou children, the good spirit of Konoha's Hokage will protect their innocence.'

The blond made a small, embarrassed noise as he smiled, leaning again on his arms and flopping on the table.

'I lucked out like you wouldn't believe. I was, uh…' he stopped, shrugging a little as he didn't really want to say. It had been too much, too much, too soon, all at the same time. He'd barely stopped taking medication. There had been so many attempts on Naruto's life, three in less than four months, and Kakashi had been badly wounded on the last one. He didn't know what would have happened if Genma hadn't appeared to help, and then for that mess to happen right then? The heiress of one of Konoha's most influential families, snatched away from a house full of ninja that literally could see 359º around them? It hit too close home at a very difficult time. '…not really myself.'

He looked up at the redhead, his expression a bit uneasy, but still pleased.

'I'm glad Kumo agreed to pretend nothing happened in the end. It wasn't ideal, but we would have warred otherwise. I would have gone to war.' he smiled at the redhead again. 'I think I wanted to, you know? They probably were able to tell. I was really, mad.' And when he was angry, he usually stayed that way until the source of that anger disappeared. 'I can't promise to be nice to Raikage-sama, so if we do meet in public, kindly keep me from saying something too terrible.'

Daichi had smiled to his own cup at that and drank it up slowly.

'What do you expect me to do…' he muttered as he slowly put the porcelain down, smiling 'Keep your mouth sealed with a ductape? If you want to say something bad you do it anyway.'

'Sincerely, if I'm going to mess up like in the first summit, I'd rather you smacked me.' the blond said, smile widening. 'As things are right now, I doubt Raikage-sama will be as forgiving and kind as Kazekage-sama was.'

'Don't think of me so dearly, I was only kind because you were a rookie.' said the redhead and propped his head on one of his arms. Minato had really looked nice with his headband hanging like that, he had to admit that. 'You really went overboard even for the normal relationships between ninjas. Old habits die hard.' and he was lucky that he was so shunned that nobody really tried to defend his honor when the blond called him names. If he would be more prestigious, probably someone else would do what he avoided to do.

_But you are never kind to anyone_, the blond thought, but didn't say. _You are only kind to me_. And that wasn't really true, but it was far, far from a lie as well. He was preferred to the point of unhealthiness, and he liked that. He'd always had.

'I'm still sorry about that, did I tell you that? Really, really sorry.' Not that he didn't feel he had the rights to say that, but still… About a mile too far as far as to what you could say to a nation leader and neighboring village. The redhead moved back a bit, looking at him weirdly.

'Why are you bringing the old things back? I have already accepted your apologies.' which didn't mean it wasn't sort of sweet, and the redhead felt his pulse quickening a bit at that. The way Minato looked at him made him want to move his hand through his golden locks and pet him like he would pet a beautiful animal. Maybe a dog. Maybe a cat.

'Because it's easy for me.' Minato answered, smile unwavering. Why, indeed? Because 'then' and 'now' were close by, barely separated. His life wasn't measured in time, but in arches and events. Then was somehow more real than what he lived in right at this moment, and sometimes he just felt like if he would just wake up and be back at the academy, trying to make sure his redheads weren't trying to kill each other or dying during a mission. It would be easy, he knew. He didn't think he would even notice, if it happened.

'But still, it was horribly embarrassing. I don't think my council will ever let me live it down.'

'I already said that and I'll say it again.' said the redhead and leaned on the table 'You're too soft with your council. They're as easy to bend as sponge and you let them bend you.' And it was a bit sad that he couldn't say the same about his own council. They were much less fun because of that. Which didn't mean that he didn't do what he wanted around its nose. 'Just don't let them live it down that you're in charge of their peace. That's enough.'

'I don't think they like me very much as it is.' he was surprised they hadn't tried to murder him after that disaster with Kumo. He hadn't paid much attention back then- he hadn't only constantly interrupted the ambassadors and politics sent to deal with the issue, ha also had barely let his own council or the Hyuuga say a word. 'At any rate, they might even like this idea. I trust I have your agreement?'

'If you're talking about the pact of nonaggression then yes, it's still up and running,.' said the redhead as he leaned back on his chair. 'The Third made sure it was respected.' Or more, just feared that it should be respected. And that worked just as fine for him. 'And your council doesn't have to like you. Just don't let it tell you what to do.'

'The summit, stupid.' the blond shook his head at the older man. 'And not all of us make a hobby of driving insane 2/3 of the political standing in one's village.'

'Yes. You have also my permission to call the summit. And it's Sabaku.' he added. 'Not 'stupid'.' And yet another thing he had let go of now. Which was really a symptom of that he was getting either too soft or too old. He liked the explanation of 'that nice feeling around the stomach'. He had no reason to call the summit but he wouldn't miss the occasion to meet up again at any cost.

'Yes, my Lord~' the blond said in what he thought to be amusement and yet somehow ended up sounding rather flirtatious. It would definitely have been an awkward moment if Chiyo-sama hadn't chosen that time to march in the house Oh-Ho-Hoing merrily while dragging a shell shocked, white-haired Sennin that seemed to be unable to do anything but cry silently and rock while curled into a fetal position.

'…maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all…' the blond noted, already walking to his teacher to see the extents of the damage.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Click. And there he was and here they were. He and his family and his underlings and the last case he had closed, the case with his most important, private things he had dragged with him every time he had moved out of his village. Which meant a lot of boring things he had never missed if the enemies took it with them, thinking he had kept scrolls near him.

Daichi looked down at it with a bit of sadness. The feeling of doing something not very right was not leaving him for the whole night as he had been going around and commanding people to behave and to sleep (while he couldn't). After he had pushed out the blond and Chiyo's trophy new husband (gods forbid for such a new grandfather, but he knew that if anything, gran was still living in her youth when it came to the sexual commitment. So, if Jiraiya had seen her naked, no matter how he did that, he was supposed to pay up for taking away the virtue of the woman with his own freedom) and pushed out was a very far stretched word as with on hand he was pushing the part that held onto Jiraiya and with the other he was all but holding onto his side, with need to kidnap the man so strong he didn't think it was possible to consider it truthfully – he had to take care of himself. And it had only ended up in the night full of thinking and trying not to think. At least he made sure that his kid didn't get bedsores.

He huffed and nodded at Baki to take the sleeping redhead into his hands. It was only a sunrise and the way was long and hard. He was happy that his ninja complied and had actually taken care of filling the scrolls with as much snow as possible. He would come back to the Suna twice as rich with twice as safe son. Gifts from heavens. His heart was heavy at that. But the time for waiting was gone and he had no more occasions to hesitate. He took his blue hat and made sure it didn't come off if he had shook his head.

Then he moved outside with the rest of remaining ninjas. The air was dull, like if the night was still a bit sleepy and forgot how to bite the skin. The grey colors and orange shade of a sunrise from far away made the world look abandoned. He nodded once again at Baki and gave him his suitcase, so he could have both of his hands free once he had stood in the front of the Konoha's Fourth Hokage.

'Thank you for your hospitality.' he said with a dry, unwavering tone as he had finally looked at the man 'The village of the Hidden Sand is indebted with you and we shall never forget how good you were to us, Hokage-sama.'

Minato smiled brightly, a sleepy little blond held in one arm with his nose firmly pressed against his father's right shoulder. Said little blond gave one barely-coherent look, but at catching sight of Baki, the eyes widened comically and he buried his face against the material of his robes, whimpering something giant skeletons roaming the desert. It was nice to see his baby had learned a bit of foreign culture after all this mess.

'Please Kazekage-sama, the pleasure was all ours.' the council's eyes spoke volumes of the amount of pleasure they had received. 'I'm terribly sorry about the weather not agreeing with your health, though. Next time I'll make sure to arrange our meetings during the summer months.'

The Kazekage rose his hand up in a gesture well known as 'enough'. ANBU shook a little, as they knew it very well – from the negative side. But they were wrong – Daichi was not intending to start the end from bad memories. He let himself smile with a tight, polite smile.

'Please, think nothing of it.' he said. 'It's my fault for not making sure I'd have enough of stamina to survive through. I'll be sure to prepare better in the future. Thank you for caring.'

The hand sleeked with the black mitten was slowly pulled down in a gesture of a beginning of a handshake. The younger man quickly put down the orange-clad bundle so he could return the gesture. Naruto pouted at him with squinted eyes, but when he saw the older siblings of Gaara, he trotted after the older girl and boy to ask them where Gaara was.

'I'd appreciated if instead you would refrain from inviting us around September, I don't think any amount of preparing would help us during that time of the year.' Dog Days were hard on people born and bred in the desert, he didn't think anyone from this size of the pole would be ready to face it.

'Either way, it was good to see you, Kazekage-sama. Thank you for the honor of bringing Chiyo-sama and the rest of your family with you, it's been nice meeting them again.' At the mention of the older woman's name, Nara Shikaku narrowed his eyes lightly on her small figure, while Gai gave her a thumbs up and a dazzling smile that Shikaku had to cover when the reflecting sunrays nearly blinded most of the group. The redhead glanced to the side quickly, seeing how the little blond disturbed his kids' peace, but said nothing of it. Mostly because he doubted that it mattered, and also because he felt as the minimal figurine of Shukaku tried to draw letters on the front of his shirt, collected mostly of obscene words. He quickly patted at it, but it didn't help anything. The old woman at his side laughed merrily, like if she was at the best tea party of her life.

'Back to you, Konoha's Hokage-sama! I swear I had a good time here, I swear I did, ho ho ho!'. Gai's smile also didn't seem to scare her as she winked at the boy good naturedly. Kakashi had only sighed and looked at the side, following discretely the blond boy who had gotten away so much he could as well ride away to Suna if anyone had missed him. Mostly because he was now trying to get to where the red hair could be seen and that meant the main carriage. Gaara seemed to be sleeping dead, because even if he tried, he could barely see his chest moving. It looked almost like if the kid didn't know how to cope with sleeping that was unnatural to his state.

Daichi frowned and took his hand away.

'I was about to propose that. September is the most peaceful month on the desert for that everyone try to avoid making a mess during the Zenith.' he said simply as he rose his head with a slight pride and amusement 'But rest assured then, if that's the case then please, come by near the cold months. We will have the Eclipse then and there's rare possibility of that the nearby river will flood the village. It's a beautiful sight when desert blooms with life every few decades.'

Minato smiled in return, but the strain of it was rather clear.

'How generous.' he said, remembering hot air and fever and wanting to throw up so badly but his body revolting horrendously at the thought of losing a single drop of water unnecessarily. He had the feeling Daichi might also had been passing him some of his own share of water, because he had somehow survived it.

Bastard would probably put him to work on the fields if that were to happen, too. He frowned at the thought of how might an eclipse affect the bijuu's, but as hard as he had researched on the matter, nothing on regards of it had ever been addressed. He'd like to think that if an eclipse made the creature extra strong, extra weak, drunk as skunks or turn into heat, someone might have said something about it. As he thought about the matter, his own bijuu had finally sidestepped the older kids and carelessly gotten into the cart to roughly shake the little redhead.

'Gaara!' he yelled without any sort of finesse, making his father sweat drop lightly. 'Gaara, you're leaving, wake up and say bye!'

The little redhead didn't stay asleep long after that. He woke up with a gasp, very much shocked about what he saw so suddenly and mute thanks to that. Thankfully, Baki was standing nearby, and since Gaara recognized him, he didn't make a shameful stroll of emotions.

'I'm leaving?' he said, then looked at Naruto. 'But we're supposed to leave tomorrow.' Then he frowned, seeing that the night had greyed out. 'Or is it now?'

Daichi didn't even flinch at that. He felt like grinning at the sudden outburst of Naruto, but he could do that only with a veil on his face. Maybe he could start reconsider doing that again. Since his teens he hadn't done that for a long time.

'We will be leaving then.' he muttered. He glanced at the lustful lips of the man but that was out of the question. He could dream though.

'It's now. It's tomorrow already.' The blond said releasing the front of Gaara's clack now he was holding himself upright. 'Well, it's today. Yesterdays' tomorrow, though… so it's now. I'm sure that!' He gave the redhead a funny look, cocking his head to the side. 'You sleep really weird, Gaara.'

Gaara had only blinked. He couldn't see how he was sleeping and he still couldn't grasp when this sleeping happened as he had no control over it and couldn't decide when he had slipped away. So he shrugged. Then he looked at the blonde and frowned even more.

'If today's tomorrow, then I'm leaving now.' he said and his face had turned into unhappy grimace 'I don't want to leave.'

The blond's face fell for a moment, not really wanting his new friend to leave either, but he'd talked about it with his father already, and apparently they had overstayed so long it was bad for their village or something if they did it anymore.

'I don't want you to, too, but daddy says there's lots of stuff to do and you need to be home for that to happen, or something. But anyway, I'm gonna start getting classes and daddy said Kashi's going to start teaching me stuff, so next time we meet, I'll help you better with climbing walls, okay? And I'll write you.' the blond said, grinning lightly. 'And you write me back, okay? And we'll meet again and play and eat ramen.' That sounded like a plan.

Gaara's frown had diminished a bit, but he still looked unconvinced. It sounded like a good idea, but he still didn't want to go back to his home where nobody liked him and everyone threw stones at him for him to go away where neither father or Yashamaru were looking. He didn't want to be alone again.

'Can't you come with me?' he muttered quietly 'Baki knows a lot of strong jutsu too.'

The blond turned to look at the man thoughtfully, for a moment seeming to seriously consider the offer.

'I can't. Daddy would miss me too much.' he concluded after a while, his expression completely serious.

'I would. Horribly.' the Hokage, who had finally decided to take pity on the uncomfortable Suna-nin and avoid the way Daichi was looking at him at the same time, swept to pick his blond bundle, then leaned give the redhead a small ruffle on the bright red hair.

'You will meet again, I'm sure of that.' Turning aside to get a better grip on his son and allow the older kids inside, he gave a small bow to the brunet and blonde as they quickly trotted inside. 'Kankuro-sama, princess.' from over his shoulder, Naruto waved wildly, nearly knocking his hat off. The council frowned, but Minato just chuckled lightly and passed the item to Kakashi. 'Have a safe trip, and please send my regards to Ebizo-sama.'

'We will.' said Daichi as he had followed his kids, along with Baki, closing the queue. The bald nin had bowed to him curtly, and closed the door to the carriage. The little redhead peeked out from it with immensely sad face and started mimicking Naruto only with much less energy. 'Keep safe, Hokage-sama.'

After that, the black curtain fell and the coach had moved, leading the group of ninjas. A few moments later it was preceded and surrounded by the camels of ANBU, which seemed to be very unhappy they had to be outside again. Daichi had looked back, though he could see nothing but a faint light seeping through the curtain inside. He felt his heart growing heavy.

'It will be raining when we get outside the winter zone.' muttered Baki. The agonizing orange sunrise had pointed at that more than clearly. Kazekage nodded at that. A few hours later the first raindrops hit the carriage. Gaara was asleep by then again, his sad face drowned into the peaceful sleeping. The boldly dancing figurine of Shukaku had turned into a ball and kept quiet once the wet air drained in. Daichi looked at it and opened the curtain at the slightest. The bald trees and grey sky looked like if they were dead. That was it.

Or maybe it wasn't.

'Well, that was nice.' the blond said, turning to the ninja staring at him like if he'd gone mad and his council glaring dagger at him, Utatane's perfectly penciled brown twitching minutely. 'We should do it more often.'

Turning towards his jounin, he put a hand on the wild silky puff of white hair and ruffled it lightly. 'Thanks for dealing with everything, Kakashi-kun.' he said, walking back towards his office with Naruto still firmly clamped to his neck. 'I owe you so much for this you might even get the R rated version of what you wanted for your birthday.'

The grey-haired nin had looked at his sensei like if he had suddenly saw the green antennas growing out of his head. He stopped breathing too – who knew, maybe it was only a slap of his imagination only? He wanted to keep the moment as long as possible. But when it didn't pass he had let it out and his visible eye had glinted like the super nova at the brim of its existence.

'Really?' he shouted, completely not appropriately for the time being 'Oh gosh, I can't believe it! Thank you, sensei!' And the next thing the half of the village could see was Kakashi dancing away from joy to gods only knew where (precisely it was graveyard but he was not telling that to anyone).

Minato sighed. For some reason he thought it wasn't very normal for a kid his age to be just as excited about being taught new sealing methods than about to get a book meant for adults. He had enough perspective to know someone as abnormal as he himself was wasn't much to judge.

'You okay, baby?' he asked, looking down at the unusually quiet mini blonde in his arms.

'I miss Gaara, daddy.' the blond muttered, looking up at him with positively Kushina-esque glittery eyes.

'Aw.' Minato nuzzled him lightly 'I know you do, but you'll meet again, you'll see.' Naruto looked at him with such a hopeful look it might have been painful if he had been lying.

'Promise?'

'I promise, baby.' And it would be so. It wasn't hopeful thinking and it wasn't dedicated planning, it was a simple certainty without hope of defiance. The sun would rise, his baby was himself and not the fox and Daichi was his. They would meet again.

'Daddy?'

He looked down, only to find Naruto imitating him, a thoughtful expression as he passed the links on his necklace one after the other. After a moment, he looked up, showing him the missing gap in the lined cylinder.

'One of the slivery sticks is missing.' The blond nodded, smiling lightly.

'Silvery, baby.'

#+#+#+#+#+#

Blink. One eye opened. A big laughing smile of a monster cracked in front of his face and jumped outside the window, sizzling in the crack between the glass, right into the never-ending fields of yellow browns. There it had sizzled and swam through it, near the wheels of the coach, obviously happier and bigger. Now it was the size of a small dog. Dachshund or something… He knew it would get more problematic when he would get further away.

It was already the third day of the journey. The sun was scalding, the sun was hot, the sun was the devil among the earth. He heard his people taking off their additional clothes and the murmur that was more happy than he wanted it to be – it seemed that not only he was homesick. His older offsprings had looked around with curiosity, seeing things only a man living long in the desert would see. He smiled at the brief shine of the snake trying to get nearby the long line of people and passing quickly as the line parted for a moment to let it go. Daichi sighed. It seemed that getting back to home made his people more soft heartened.

Sadly, he couldn't say the same about people who have welcomed him at the steps of his own house. It was already evening and even if there was no single trace of a change, he could smell the presence of the council being everywhere. Everywhere. They probably once again wanted to play Big Brother with him and thought he wouldn't notice. He looked at Yashamaru, thinking about punching him for a good morning for letting them in so recklessly, but the first thing that had greeted him was the note in the hand of the blond with badly drawn map of his own room with red dots. It said more than it needed.

Hypocrisy grew inside this man and bore fine fruits. So, instead he had kissed the sickish cheek for a good morning (he would kiss him on lips as every grown man of higher rank would greet the member of a family but Yashamaru reeked of cheap vodka and he hated that smell).

'I'm glad to see you again.' he lied smoothly.

'It's good to see you in good health.' answered the man also lying.

So all was old, all was on its place. All was well. Beside Gaara who, when he had jumped out of the carriage, had looked around like if he didn't recognize the place. Shukaku, which looked now like a cat that got a bowl full of cream had landed near his steps, looking like a mutation between its old self and a short, fat mastiff with googly stupid yellow eyes and crazily smiling fangs that reeked of nothing but need to murder. He glanced at it and it looked at him, but even if his glare showed nothing but threat the bijuu seemed to laugh at him with a cocky mute laughter. Gaara, despite looking scared of the monster also, leaned on it more as the people didn't greet him with anything but hateful glares. Shukaku didn't react to that.

He needed to collar the thing. After commanding that to Baki and sending him immediately to do it, he took his luggage himself and took it to his own room that smelled like dust and grave in which no one had lived for months. Sighing, he opened the first suitcase that contained the block of toilet paper with flowers that Chiyo bought at Konoha (she had always bought something of that kind when she was away when they were both younger) and made a round over his room, tightly shutting the vision of the cameras, then punching at them with less than a simple punch. The things cracked and fell on the floor. It seemed that his council wasted his money on useless things and wanted to steal his precious electricity also. What a bunch of bastards. Didn't they know how expensive it was?

With a tired sigh, he decided to let go of everything and landed face first on his own bed. Gods…

…he couldn't even lay quietly in peace. Once he had closed his eyes he heard unknown noise in his own room. Didn't he break enough of cameras or was it another device he had missed? He got up and looked around, trying to allocate the source of the noise… and it seemed it was coming from not the room but his own luggage. What was it, had he taken not his own luggage for a mistake? And if not, then what kind of bomb could it be? He could expect anything.

Bitterly, not liking how the first minutes of his homecoming seemed, he grabbed one of his kunais he had on himself and turned into the luggage with an intention to react violently if it was something he hadn't expected. Then, with swift move, he had opened the baggage.

A small frog looked back at him. It wasn't the smallest ones Minato favored so much when they were in mission- the obviously poisonous one's, or the much larger familiars that he usually summoned when he needed to add some muscle to a fight. It was roughly the size of his fist, with a specked brown, black and white coat and white underbelly, strangely roundish, rather than the normally more athletic bodies of the other amphibians Minato and Jiraiya had contracted. If anything, it sort of looked like one of those toys that would squeak if squeezed, only this one would probably leak water if anyone dared do that.

A desert frog. Which probably explained while instead of being stifled by the heat and dehydrated inside the luggage it just looked rather bored.

'Yo.' it said, rising a hand in a welcoming gesture, its head held up by a curiously non-webbed front hand. 'We alone?'

The redhead had also raised his hand in a welcoming gesture, feeling how all knowledge he had gained for the most of his life had just vaporized away. Then he had saw what he was doing and immediately put his hand down. He felt the migraine coming. What was a frog doing in his luggage? The answer was obvious, but it was surely not expected. He glanced around, hoping that the room was secure enough and kneeled down so he could see the amphibian closely.

'Yes.' he muttered 'What is it? Something's happened?'

He could use a moment to see the blond again, sure, but he was also a bit tired and he couldn't decide what was ruling his muscles amphibian nodded, making himself comfortable in what seemed to be his makeup case, from all things.

'Nah, Jiraiya's brat just said you'd want this.' And then the animal nin literally regurgitated a small note into the redhead's hands. This was normal method of transportation of things for toad summons – who no one knew how they managed to fit things that literally looked bigger than them in their mouths, and to be fair, they were fairly clean after it, but being sensible to his friend, Minato had been nice and wrapped it in a plastic bag. Or maybe he'd been afraid that being a the frog was filled with water, the thing would run the ink or something.

'Brat says for you to get rid of it when done.'

The redhead blinked, looking at the note wrapped in the paper and glanced at the frog, frowning. He had seen that being done before, but he still found it a little strange. His hawks had simply transported things in their claws.

'Is this a message in need of replying?' he muttered as he carefully opened the bad and unfolded the paper.

'Dunno, I'm not snoopy.' the frog said, sounding vaguely offended by the mere implication he might have read a message that was addressed to someone else. 'Just read it and get rid of it, then I can leave.'

Daichi had only glanced at it, not knowing how to treat the response. So, the things were rude as always… but in that case, could he expect such a risky thing as love letter? Minato would be smarter than sending things to the world of such kind. Quietly, he had opened the paper and read on.

_Dearest, darlingest Daichi-sama: You pro__bably are still wondering why I acted that way at the cabin. No, wait, you probably forgot about it because you are too busy making your council cry, so I'm going to remind you now that I'm at a safe distance to escape immediate punishment. Either way, *now* that you are thinking about what happened to the cabin, I'll start by telling you whatever you thought is dead wrong. _

_I wasn't being shy, I wasn't disgusted, I wasn't having seconds thought or thinking about other people –or really anything else you might have thought. I just did it because, well… I really liked touching you. Really, really liked it. And then I thought - you would really like touching me back. And then I thought- hey, we are not gonna see each other for a long time. And then I realized that if I didn't touch you, you'd spend all that time thinking about *next* time, and pondering over all you didn't do and all you wanted to do and didn't… and thinking about that made really happy. In my pants, mostly. _

_Placing thoughts in perspective now, I do feel stupid and I do feel bad, but I never seem to think about this things at the moment… and now are probably angryish at me, so when you see me next and feel like killing me, just remember- I'm blond, you love me and I swallowed. _

_XXXOXOXO Me _

_Ps: I expect my jacket to be returned as soon as possible. That you look good in red was not an invitation for you to steal it. _

_Ps2: And hey, maybe if you are fair to me this year and don't try to make me sign anything too outrageous, I'll be nice and let you tie me up and have your way with me. Maybe._

When the paper got lowered, the pale skin contrasted with the red hair like milk with paprika. Oh… dear gods. That was not only tricky and not only awful. That was simply worse, because it was dirty. And so, so not discreet. And yet, he had stared at it for a few seconds more. It was so cruel. And it brought images he didn't think about before simply because he pushed them away. With bondage, the blond touched the deep hidden string that had always laid inside his soul, waiting for him to get too excited on the battlefield so no one would stop him from doing things no ninja would have done without a good reason. And he had reason – he loved his victims helpless and begging. He loved control.

And the vision of the blond laying in front of him, sprawled naked, tied up and very much at his command made his throat go dry. Not to mention about what's happened with his pants. With shaking hands, he had slowly rolled the paper into a ball and burned it with his chakra and came over his little desk, where the paper lied.

'You will bring this as a response.' he said, scribbling quickly words over the small piece of paper 'Along with this.' Then he drew a small seal with the ink, sealed the message away and gave it to the frog, nodding it away. The frog jaw-dropped. Considering frogs were 2/3 mouth, it wouldn't be a stretch to say Daichi would probably be able to see the thing's stomach if he'd been still kneeling in front of it.

'What? No way, man, I'm not walking back there. There's snow halfway down, at least give me a ride on a hawk or something!'

Daichi had squinted his eyes, frowning. Then he had quickly made a summoning seal, making the big, black and white hawk appearing at his arm. The thing had the patch on one of its golden-orange eyes and clapped its beak in annoyance.

'What is it, Daichi?' it muttered with a booming voice. If anything, his summons rarely talked, he wasn't sure if it was out of pride or laziness. But if anything, Washimoki was an exception of the rule. 'I was having such a precious journey through the sky, Daichi!' The redhead did nothing of the threatening voice.

'Dinner.' he said simply. The orangeish eye had immediately sharpened and looked down, right into the frog. Then the animal had very visibly smiled with greediness. 'Not for you, Washimoki.' said Daichi, petting the thing lightly over the head, getting its attention for a second to have his fingers bitten off (he learned to move his hands way already) only to see the hawk staring at the frog again. 'I need you to transport it to Konoha before the dinner. Don't eat it.'

'Of course, of course…'

It seemed it didn't get to its head at the slightest. The redhead rose his eyebrows lightly and looked at the frog in silence.

'Get in.' he said as the eagle opened its beak. Only after the disapproving tap of his the animal closed it and reluctantly opened the claws of its leg, not trying the slightest to hide the pointy nails. Rude or not, the little thing wouldn't have outlived encounters with snakes, scorpions, foxes and dogs if it didn't had a well installed sense of self preservation. It took less than a second for it to swallow the message and give the man a half-assed salute.

'You know what, I think I better walk."

'If that so…' said Daichi as the hawk had jumped impatiently from one of his hand from the other. 'Are you sure? Are you rrrrreally surrrre?' It quaked, obviously seeming to be nervous that the treat was running away 'I'll be sure to make it extra tasty and quick! Extra safe and yummy! And did I mention I fly fast? I need to eat a lot because of that!'

'No, really, I'm okay.' the thing said in a funny tone that sounded more like something the man's dogs would emit, its normally dry skin starting to pearl with perspiration. 'I heard it's good for my metabolism. And snow is just really freaking cold water, huh? Water's awesome. Awesome frozen water. Huh.' As it spoke, the frog had quickly made its way to the nearest window, taking a quick peck outside to make sure no one was around- though in reality, it probably was looking for the nearest safe spot to hide from things with beaks and claws. 'So, uh, yeah. bye.'

It jumped off, fleeing at a considerable speed for such a round, pudgy thing, and as soon as it reached the stark shadows beneath a closed street shop, it seemed to disappear, probably aided with genjutsu. The hawk looked disappointed for a minute.

'You owe me in cookies.' it said and it pecked him quite harshly on the ear right before disappearing in the puff of smoke. Daichi had only caught his ear, feeling how it became pink and swollen from the hurtful show of warm feelings from his summon. He could hardly get used to that, especially as Washimoki had a beak that crushed through stones and didn't try to be very gentle.

'Crackers, Polly. Crackers.' he said as he had returned to his luggage and decided to leave it off and take a little rest to let his erection lower down 'They're cheaper.'

The rest of evening had passed him on lustful imagination of Minato tied like a Christmas ham.

#+#+#+#+#+#

It was four days later, while Minato boiled water for their cup ramen – the only thing they would be eating for at least another month, if he ever planned to pay the bakery what Daichi's kids and his own –but mostly, they sitters- had spent- that his son dashed into the house, followed closely by two pearly-eyed darkheads.

'Daddy, daddy!' The note of alarm had the blond turning around to stare at the three panting, flushed faces, but no one seemed to be physically hurt, except that girl seemed to be hugging her chest.

'Hinata-sama?' he asked concernedly, immediately turning away from the fire to make sure the kids were all right.

'Daddy, look what Hinata found!' The girl blushed scarlet, stuttering something about not being able to do it if her cousin hadn't been helping her with her training, but Minato didn't really pay much attention, because the girl wasn't hugging her chest, it was hugging something she was cradling inside her parka.

A frog. A very frozen frog.

'Oh, my…' Vaguely alarmed, he thanked the girl and took the really quite rigid body, quickly walking to the kitchen. He almost poured the water from the kettle straight onto it, then thought of it better and put it on the sink, aiming the faucet to the small animal, and opening it on hot. It would take a moment for it to get hot, and the gradual change would probably be better for thawing it.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Minato had a revived, if very angry and sniffly frog barely peeking from over a bowl of steaming water, the three kids already at the table while they shared ramen and some taco balls Hotaru-san had been kind enough to send them when she'd left her son and nice with them.

'Well?' The frog glared at him spitefully and lowered itself on the water even more.

'That's not very mature, Sou-san.'

'Mature! Mature is your brat of a friend throwing a stupid hawk to eat me, that's mature!' Being half submerged, the words weren't really understandable, but he was able to fill in the blanks. It took a few moments to placate the angry animal, but he finally had a curiously sealed note in his hands. He checked for lack of traps for a moment, but as there didn't seem to be anything dangerous about it, he opened it.

_Suck my cacti dry and needle__ss_. It read. And then, it had simply exploded in his hands, flying toward the floor as from the seamless foam the very naked copy of Minato stood right in front of him, wearing only the stolen red coat.

'You want it?' it said and it leaned over to drape itself over the blond in a way that would make a grown up Hyuuga blush scarlet. Neji had simply dropped his chopsticks, staring at the scene in front of him. 'Then come and get it before I my passion burns it to ashes.' Then the clone had kissed him on the mouth, smiling smugly. 'You don't have to burn this message.'

And with a simple pop, the clone disappeared.

'Promise is a promise.' It read on the paper now.

The blond gawked, barely keeping himself from stabbing the thing in front of him as it appeared out of sheer ninja survival instinct, before he recognized what it really looked like. He barely had time to blink before his copy leaned in to kiss him in what really had to be a much less than brotherly way- a way it's creator would likely be enjoying a backlash from, he realized belatedly.

'Oh…' he said, frowning at the paper and placing it in his pocket as he walked at the table 'I guess sensei is still mad at me.' He muttered, seemingly to himself, before reaching for one of the sour-sweet coated octopus balls and eating one.

It seemed like it took him the amount of time he used to chew and swallow the bite to realize the kids were still there and had likely seen it all. Of course Jiraiya hadn't done that, but it wasn't farfetched enough for anyone not to think it.

'Ah-! I'm so very sorry for that, Neji-sama, Hinata-sa-' he stopped, blinking at the little girl. '…Hinata-sama?' The girl let out a high pitched, whimpery sound and promptly collapsed backwards, her eyes little swirls and her normally pale face the furious color of – of… well, Daichi's hair. Maybe ever Gaara's.

'Hinata-chaaan!' Naruto wailed, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and shaking. Unphasedly, Minato stared as he took another ball, chewing thoughtfully. On retrospective, maybe that last post data had been a little too much. He should have known Daichi would like the idea. In his experience, all professional puppeteers were a little sick in the head. Neji had only looked at him like if he was not completely good on the head and kept on waving his hand over Hinata-sama's face. Next time he will have to just make sure that neither of the Hokages come out alive of this, before Hinata would see something so obscene. Even if he had to pay with his life for it.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Back in the Suna, the redhead was actually gardening his cacti, making sure that everything that Yashamaru forgot to do was done. He was about to curse that he had got bitten through his fingers by needless again, when the backslash fell on him right from nowhere. He smiled as the feelings of a warm lips smeared over his and how the vision of the blond had invaded his senses. It was such a pleasant vision, so desirable, so lovable. It was almost a shame he had to tear through and get back to reality to shoot a kunai to his left. The dull thud had informed him clearly that he had missed.

'My, my, such a reflex.' commented the voice from the shadows, accompanied with a single clapping of hands, covered with a dark material. 'I applaud you, Kazekage-sama. Your guards had missed me so easily for so long.'

'Who are you.' he said, more than asked. He was still smiling with a dreamy sweet smile as the feeling was not leaving him, but his eyes had sharpened and looked at the figure that emerged from the shadows. 'Show yourself.'

The man smiled and slowly clincked the glasses on his nose, flashing the sun on them right into his eyes.

'Yakushi. Yakushi Kabuto. The former genin from Konoha.' answered the figure smiling in displeasured way. 'Actual messenger from Otogakure.'

Daichi had stopped smiling. He didn't know what was going on. That was the most dangerous. Maybe he should have seen the new scrolls on his desk first instead of playing the gardener.

'Otogakure?' he said, straightening himself and folding his arms 'I know nothing of such village. How did he get into his village – or, so close to his home, unnoticed? Even the joke of a dog, that had been Shukaku and treated all newcomers quite rough did nothing and he heard it laughing not a few steps away, completely oblivious 'What is your country? Who is your leader?'

'My country is the country of Sound.' said the ninja, still smiling at him 'And my leader is the Otokage, the one from legendary three sennins. His name is Orochimaru-sama.' And that was enough. Suddenly, the shurikens clanged in the air, but before they had even landed on the ground, Daichi had bended down the strange man, pushing the kunai near his throat and uncovering his face. It seemed it was a youngster, a grey-haired rookie. And yet, his headband was real.

'Get out, you're a missing nin.' he muttered, not bothering with the fact that the blood started seeping from the little cut 'I have no matters I would discuss with such a man as Orochimaru.'

The ninja did nothing but smiled. That set Daichi's alarm on the even higher range. But before he knew, the man had pushed his own kunai in his own throat, spilling the gushing blood.

'What are you waiting for, kill me.' it muttered with a gurgling voice 'I'm not here after all.' And then he felt the cold kunai touching his throat. As it came, the thing he held in his hands was dead and didn't fade back like a clone, and yet, the presence behind him was the one he wanted to attack. Instead, he had got trapped in a simple catch. But before he made a defensive move, the knife was taken away.

'I think you do.' said the ninja, looking exactly like the one on the ground 'You don't say 'no' to such an offer. ' Daichi smiled cockily.

'And if I do?' he said. It was unwise, but he was a proud man and he was not letting anyone to take him like that. The teen smiled and… took the knife away.

'Nothing.' he said, flashing the redhead with the sunlight from his glasses again 'We come in peace.'

'So please, rethink our offer.' said the smug voice right behind his ear. Before he knew, he had the other presence behind his back. And the aura couldn't be mistook with anyone. Orochimaru. He had only met him once, and yet, he remembered it so well.

But when he turned around, ready to attack with a fist of stinging sand, the wind blew in his face, showing the empty space.

'Think of it.' it read on the ground with mud, that couldn't be there even if he had poured his blood on the ground. The stones were too dry. But a glance to his flowers had explained it very quickly why the ground was so wet. His cacti leaned on the sun like empty leaves, dry and void of a droplet of water. Years of gardening gone in a second.

'Screw you.' he muttered and shoed his gardening apron on the ground, letting the dirt and wetness to it. It was no use for him anymore.

#+#+#+#+#+#

In Konoha, things continued as it was normal for them to, Or at least so were the first few days after the departure of the Sunanians. To start with, it took about a week for Minato to be able to catch up with all the left-behind paperwork he had to respond to (he supposed a week was pretty good considering how busy he had been for the past month) and then e was back to his more normal and less swamped routine, with the council being a bit more lenient on how badly they glared in his direction now that he needed to take some time off as often as possible to start teaching Kakashi advanced sealing techniques.

At the same time Naruto had started classes with the young Tokuma chuunin the Hyuugas had recommended him, and as chance would have it, it was the young man that had accidentally had his eye wounded by Shukaku just a few weeks prior. The little blond wasn't particularly happy about the man's' presence and the truth was that Minato had seriously considered choosing someone else because he had gotten the distinct feeling Ebisu-kun was the sort of ninja he disliked the most- the sort that looked at Naruto as if he were the fox itself, and not the only thing keeping it from rampaging insanely.

It wasn't anything specific he did, it was just his attitude in general whenever he saw him that made Minato edgy, and he had been wanting to get rid of the guy and find someone better suited, but unfortunately, he was stupid enough to talk about the matter with Sarutobi, who had wisely advised him to let things be if only for a little while. Naruto was as safe as one could be, and the truth of the matter was that as much as he'd like to, Minato couldn't protect him from everything for the rest of his life. Eventually Naruto would have to face a lot of people who thought like the man or worse, and he would have to learn to face it on his own.

The problem with good advice was that once you had it, you couldn't really ignore it the way you would have been able to before you had heard it. Ebisu stayed. Minato hated it, but he had to admit if there was one thing he couldn't complain about was the fact the man knew how to make even an ambulatory disaster with nigh inexistent attention span like his son was. He just needed to take a look at the letters he'd made for Gaara. He would never have guessed it, but apparently Naruto liked very much the idea of sending letters, and he had one prepared to be sent when the little redhead hadn't been out of the village for six hours. He had told him to wait for another couple days to make sure they had arrived, because the hawks made the trip much faster than ninja could.

By the third day, Naruto had three extra pages filled with chatty nothing such as how they would be eating instant ramen until at lead the end of the month, how Neji and Hinata were so sorry they couldn't say bye to them and that they hoped they could meet and how Jiraiya had finally recovered from his shock enough and left in a pilgrimage to find a woman his daddy called Tsunade-sensei because as he said her 'goods' would either fix him back up to what he was or her fist put him out of his misery.

He left it on his desk to have a look over them and make sure no state secret had been breached, and by then he forgot about it. And a week later, Naruto had some other extra pages, mostly composing his classes with Ebisu and how he hated him and what he had to study and once he were Hokage he would make sure no one had to study geography because no one really cared how many square miles did one land have as opposed to the other… By the time he was done with checking everything his son had done, Naruto had had exactly fifteen classes and he was amazed by the fact he almost was sure his son had gotten the difference between 'you're' and 'your' down almost flawlessly, among several other things.

He was also pretty sure Daichi wasn't going to like the fact his son was getting a pile of letters thicker than a newspaper, but he decided to ignore that and just send the thing, a little note of his own attached.


	36. Chapter Thirty Six: My torniquet

Indeed, it was a new thing in Suna village. The moment when the travelling hawk had finally flew into the main office and dropped the mail right in front of Daichi, knocking over his cup with light bitter tea, the chaos emerged. Before the glass even touched the ground the six differently masked ANBUs dropped into the office from the thin air and half of them pointed their weapons at the desk and others already had been halfway into defensive jutsus done. The redhead itself stared at the big envelope for a moment in complete surprise, only moving his heavily decorated fingers so the sun could shine in gold and blind anyone who looked through the windows.

Then he jumped out off the desk and pointed his both hands at it in seals formed in less than few millisecond, making his ANBUs backing away in fear. And just then the door slammed open and one stupid dog with too many teeth and too fat and muscular body for a mastiff fell into the office like if he weighed less than a few feathers, jumped at the desk and grabbed the envelope like the tastiest, most comfortable shoe to gnaw at and started shaking its head so wildly it was impossible to see anything beside two black and yellow eyes flashing in a long line of flash.

A second later a small red-haired heir of the provisional version of the Suna throne ran into the office also and caught the animal at the ears as it had no collar (had anyone mentioned how funny it was when they thought that after many times of the animal trying to bite their hands off and running away from them had finally got collared and then the dog had just disappeared from the spot in a cloud of sand only to reappear twenty centimeters further from the spot while the collar lied abandoned on the ground?).

'No! Bad Shukaku! Bad dog!' shouted Gaara, making ANBU glance at themselves. The Fourth Kazekage of the whole Suna and Wind itself sighed irritated and massaged his temples.

'Gaara.' he muttered as he grabbed the anima-thing by its ears (surprisingly, it didn't disappear) and tossed onto the ground, while his other hand remained stiff on the envelope. Now the object was all covered in the mud that smelled like meat right from the slaughterhouse. 'How many times I told you to keep an eye on this… this?'

He pointed his hand at the monster of a dog – it didn't seem to be amazed by the fact it was tossed, more – it started chasing its own tail and then it smiled – that's right, smiled – at him and ran out as suddenly as it bargained in. The kid had only looked at his feet, ashamed.

'Sorry.' he muttered. Daichi sighed irritated once again. Then he waved his ANBU off. If the thing could survive whatever Shukaku did to it by it's strange administrations, then it could mean only one thing – it was harmless. Every trap that was posed on anyone and got in hold of Shukaku's big teeth exploded right away, leaving the animal running around wildly without head until it got to the nearest source of the sand. And it really didn't matter what the trap was. He stopped acting surprised after one of his euphorbias, after getting sniffed up by the monster instead of leaking the white poisonous milk, exploded right into its stupid eyes.

He opened the envelope, and grimaced as he saw the childish writing that contained a lot of grammatical errors. Then he looked at the smeared address and nothing else was unclear. No wonder Shukaku came by when not a moment ago he could see him sitting on the street and scaring his innocent civilians.

'It's for you.' he said and he tossed the thing toward his youngest son 'Write him back to shorten his letters, that one gave us a scare.'

Gaara had only looked back confused, and then, unceremonially, he had opened the envelope so much all the contents fell onto the floor. After a moment the excited animal was once again back and it wagged its big long tail like a snake as it made circles around the redhead. Gaara didn't seem to mind – he lied on his tummy and started looking through the letters in his own pace. He was definitely comfortable right in the middle of his very official office.

'Gaara.' he muttered as he took the cup from the floor. It cracked in three. 'Go away to your room, I'm working.'

'This is for you.' was the answer as the kid tossed something at him. The dog jumped up, trying to catch it with its teeth, but his reflexes didn't let it. He simply caught it before Shukaku managed to do, almost losing one finger. But he knew he wouldn't and Shukaku also knew it, because in its stupid eyes there was much less humor than before, even if it had still smiled like a Cheshire cat. What would want Naruto from him? Quietly, he opened the much shorter note from the rest of the papers.

The note, of course, wasn't from Naruto (through really, comparatively, the calligraphy of the letter Gaara got was much more understandable).

_Sorry, Naruto was feeling chatty, I asked him to make sure not to write more than two pages a week, for next time. I'll just send them all together once a month, 8 pages sounds reasonable, right? Underneath, there was a hasty added postdate, the first word on it bolded, under crossed several times and circled with red marker. _

_Ps: Maybe. You still know what that means, no? _

The redhead looked at the word, blinking in silence, then, like if it was the most normal thing in the world, he crushed the note into a small ball and tossed right into the ugly dog. The anima-thing caught it immediately and started scrapping it to shreds, making such a mess it was almost strange it was only a short note.

'No.' he said as he got back to his desk. 'I don't.' Gaara looked at him, but he only waved him off. He could let them stay once in awhile. Sometimes even animals could be useful after all. That wasn't all the heavy mail the Kazekage received. That very same week, he received a scroll containing a much heavier package. Approximately six hundred pages worth of 'anonymously written' novella whose main protagonist was a short, middle aged redhead man with ED who was into cross-dressing and had a taste for little blond kids.

Daichi at first didn't understand the joke and started reading the scroll as if it contained something important. Sometimes he had got such heavy scrolls, but it was only emergency and he had never gotten one just 'because'. Only after reading from the code that 'the middle aged redhead who wore exclusive bra started salivating at the sight of blueyed angel that had only just hatched from the egg' meant 'how would you like your feet dipped in statuary or would you like to dance with an emergency that showed up at the brain damage of the street' (one code)

'the snake had just dangled its legs on the tree and now its humming old drunken political gummy bears to the moonlight's shadow' (second one) he felt like an idiot. A moment later the scroll made a great add to his night fireplace as the nights were quite cold at this side of the world. Instead of staying silent, he wrote a note with a critique, making sure that he mentioned he was curious how Jiraiya got to see him in his underwear when he usually went commando and why was he so eager to get into his own pants. He had also made a holographic seal in which a photo of a naked drunkard appeared right before opening the thing and perfumed it, so it would look just as nicely as any other tempting note.

Thanks gods, he was not very avengish, or he would ask for Chiyo to add another one of her photos again, or maybe even reappear near him and flashed him. He was not on the best terms with her, but he was sure that when it came to traumatizing Jiraiya she had found it to be as good fun as he did. But he was a good guy, right?

#+#+#+#+#+#

In the meantime, Minato was more than a bit nervous about the fact that while they had received a (normally sized) massive from Gaara, there had been no attached messages for him on regards of his note. He knew… he'd checked himself. Not that he wanted or planned to go through his baby's mail, but he really had been hoping for some sort of answer. So he read the letter back and forth and held it against light and even sniffed it to make absolutely sure there wasn't even scent code or anything like that… Because the silence really was starting to make him feel rather concerned as far as his well being was spoken for.

Oblivious to that, Naruto continued to take his lessons with varying degrees success in different grammars (as it turned out, calligraphy seemed to be one of his natural good points, oh the irony) but Minato sincerely hoped his son would never have to find himself alone without a map, because the little blonde seemed to be oblivious to landmarks that one could find in his every own village. It helped that the Hyuuga kids insisted that those same studies would be valuable once he became Hokage, because as Neji reasonably put it- whatever he learnt, he wouldn't have to learn later and would serve to make him a better leader sooner.

While this went on, Minato had his own problems to worry about, most concerning his own village. He had waited until his 'political advisors' started pressing on him again the fact he needed to go or at least receive dignitaries other than old friends from Suna to finish fixing up treaties that were half a dozen years late to propose the summit idea, and took advantage of that to distract them from perhaps other pressing political issues.

He did it because he thought there was time… because in the end, there had always been time. He had run out of it before, but like much else, he had forgotten, and so he wasn't prepared. In the end, time ran out, and in doing so, it started again his own clock. He woke up for no determinate reason at three in the morning, and like always before he waited some good five minutes before so much as opening his eyes. He couldn't really remember why he did such things anymore because they were so ingrained on him he didn't think of them consciously anymore, he just waited, and then got up.

He didn't know why, either, so he started looking up for a reason, but Naruto was deeply asleep, and other than needing to have the covers straightened on his stretched form, there was nothing worrying there. Kakashi wasn't home because he'd had a mission with Asuma (but he checked his room, just the same…). Nothing. The house was deathly still and…so was the night.

It rubbed at him the wrong way. ((Be careful, baby…)) He didn't like the way the voice sounded, too sweet to know if it was taunting or coddling. He didn't need either. He could have lived if it had been neither of those. He could have lived any other sort of inflection. The house was still and so was the night and it was a quarter past three in the morning, and he shouldn't have been up. But he was, and he went out.

He didn't see him. It wouldn't have mattered if it had, because by then it was too late, and if he had know, then maybe the boy wouldn't have sought him, if he had had any idea of what he started then-

'…Itachi?'

#+#+#+#+#+#

It had taken months to arrange the summit, and a truly ridiculous amount of mail being sent back and forth between the different villages. It was more than a little surprising when the remaining four received a scroll from Konoha, not two weeks before the meeting, written in the precise calligraphy of his secretary.

_We regret to inform that Yondaime Hokage-sama, Namikaze Minato, will be unable to assist…_

The note was slammed onto the table with such force that frail paper was broken in two.

'I need coffee.' said the redhead as he looked up from his desk with shaky cold glare. Baki immediately stood by his side as the Kazekage rose from his chair and marched toward the kitchen. That behavior was not anything good.

'But Kazekage-sama, you can't-' he started as politely as he could. In the answer the redhead turned around and put a knife to post near his throat. Baki swallowed slowly.

'I want my coffee' said the redhead in a slow, patient tone that said anything about how little patience was left in him 'And you're not going to stop me. Is that clear?'

Baki swallowed again, feeling the numb side of the knife touching his skin and having no doubts that he could die from it as easily as if it was the double edged sword.

'I must protest-' he said. And then he was knocked out. ANBU showed up right after that but they said nothing as he poured the hot water into cup filled with granulated dark coffee beans. He also pretended they weren't there. He turned around and walked through them, making them open before him like door and walked up to the window. Bitter taste of coffee, so satisfying after so long had only disturbed him. But he kept drinking.

He knew this. He was trying to play a happy innocent idiot who knew nothing about how the life played out but his doubts couldn't be hidden anymore. Here he had clearly written on the papers that Minato was not going to the summit he himself arranged. Arranged because of being there. He knew it was going to start simple. At first he wouldn't come, then he wouldn't answer, then he wouldn't lie anymore and then he wouldn't be. And then it would be over. He knew he shouldn't have let him go once he had his hold on him. He knew that simply trusting the man to stay put in his words was a mistake.

He drank the cup and went to make himself the new one. He barely glanced at ANBU who glanced back at him and between themselves. As he finally drank from the new cup he felt only more irritated than he was before.

'What are you looking at!' he yelled out, making the guards back a few feet away 'Go away!' And only when he threw the cup of steaming liquid at them the ANBU was finally gone. Alone time. At last. He started making himself third cup of coffee, ignoring how the first one started going through his bloodline.

'That's not healthy.' said suddenly a smug voice behind him. He threw a kunai at it before he even looked at the owner. The thing was dodged and hit the wall nearby. He bared his teeth. Once again he saw the glasses on the youthful grey-haired face. 'You shouldn't drink so much of strong coffee, Kazekage-sama. Did you rethink our offe-'

'The answer is no!' He roared as he threw another kunai at the person. In a moment it was gone like a wind. How did they even get there? He had to think about doing something to his security. Like, firing out half of them and burying everything valuable in the treasure points or something.

'I hate the way you make me feel.' he muttered as he slowly sipped from the cup. Then he threw the glass on the desk, not caring about the liquid anymore. He barely noticed the post eagle as it flapped inside. Only when the excited caricature of a dog started chasing it, he looked at it and ignored it at the same time. It looked like a book so it meant it was for Gaara. He was not interested in such things as for now. It was a bad thing he didn't, because the only clue as to what was happening was in one of the last lines of the massive.

'…bad things happened now and To-chan's been acting weird for a lot of days. I'm scared...'

Gaara had read the mail but decided to keep it to himself. He didn't talk about the Naruto's dad with his own father as it seemed to be pretty itchy topic for him. So instead he had only written back that his dad acted weird all the time and not worry so it will go away.

#+#+#+#+#+#

Minato had always had a nice smile, the sort of expression that made people relax around him and want to give him anything he wanted simply because he was too charismatic to say no to him. What people didn't know was that he was also capable of ugly grimaces that looked all the worse because they didn't belong to his face, because they looked like an unfitting mask in someone who shouldn't be wearing any. Right now Minato was smiling, but the way he did it left the three people in front of him no room for doubt that it was only for them to know how much he was enjoying what he did.

'I said…' he repeated smoothly, his voice almost an inappropriate purr. 'I'm not going.'

He leaned back on his chair, looking sick and drawn and tired and pale. Looking as if he were enjoying very much all of it.

'With due respect, Hokage-sama.' the woman said, her voice tight with what little control she had left of her temper. 'You don't have a choice.' The blue eyes rolled towards her, their steely blueness settling and seeming to take all of two seconds on properly focusing, before smiling at her and leaning back on his seat, looking very much like a cat who's just found a comfortable spot and intends to stay there, never mind the fact they had already been there for two.

A complete difference from the way he had acted just a few weeks prior, but then again, everything he had done since, including openly ignoring them, had been completely different from the blonde they had thought they knew. Yondaime had never again shown any sort of trust or goodwill towards them ever since what had happened with the nine tails almost six years ago, but he had never purposely sought to antagonize them like this. He had also never openly gone against them in such an aggressive way.

'Oh?' the blond asked, his tone amused. 'Council or not, threatening one's Hokage is hardly advisable. Especially given your current situation, Utatane-sama.'

The man standing nearby cleared his throat and looked at the blonde with quite disappointed stare.

'The summit will contain all the greatest heads of the countries that had ever met. It's very rare, as you know – the second generation of kages had never met up on such.' he glanced at Minato, like if he was checking if he was listening 'Even the so unreachable Third Mizukage decided to step from his nothingness and show his face. That's a honor and occasion that none of the villages would ever want to miss and you want to… skip this?'

'I know.' the blond said, his tone a clear mocking of the man's own. "I planned it myself, didn't I? A good point to make, Nonetheless, Mitokado-sama.' The blond shrugged a bit, making a sort of helpless gesture with his shoulders. 'The problem is that if my own council goes behind my back and murders ¼ of the inhabitants of the village while I'm standing right here, I'm a bit concerned about what they will do if I leave them alone for a whole week. Maybe I won't have a village to come home back at, mh?'

Again, back to this. There was hardly a thing that could be said, or anything at all that could be discussed without the blonde dragging the topic back to the table, by force if necessary. The only leeway he seemed to allow them seemed to be he at least had the decency to bring the topic only when they were in a secure room. There was no saying what would happen if anyone found out what had really transpired the night Uchiha Itachi supposedly betrayed his village.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'How could you do something like this?' the blond slammed his hand on the table with enough force to rattle the few teacups left on it. 'Behind my back? You agreed to give me some more time to figure out something-'

'We ran out of time.' the woman said, her face impassive. 'We couldn't wait anymore, it was either sacrifice a few for the sake of-'

'A few?' the blond cried, eyes wide. 'Do you have an idea how many people were in the Uchiha compound? How many pre-genin level, how many of them were just civilians with nothing to do with this?'

The ANBUs in the room looked at each other, not sure if it was the right time to intervene or just before it. Not that they hoped they would do anything. No one stood a chance with Konoha's Yellow Flash.

'Yes, we do.' said one of the elders just as calmly 'And yes, they all had to die to make Itachi look believable. Do you think that Akatsuki hires people who fail at such things? Leaving anyone alive would be too questionable for the causes.' One of the elders had bowed toward him, whispering something to his ear. The man coughed. 'Uchiha Sasuke was not planned to be left alive. We will see if it was a big mistake or not.'

'You are not touching that child.' the blond hissed, eyes narrowed on the man. 'I'll be seeing after him, not you.' After all that had happened, the one thing he had promised Itachi after all that had been lost… He wasn't going to let them put their muddy paws on that scrap of a child if he could help it.

'We're not planning to.' answered the man then glanced toward him 'What do you have us for? The murderers, like Uchiha?'

'No, gods forbid you dirtied your own goddamned hands.' Minato spat, hating himself for the brief and somewhat sickening spark of relief he felt. 'You just sent a little kid to do your dirty work.'

'Itachi did what his village needed of him, what his orders told him to do.' Utatane said, not one hair out of it's appropriate place and he hated her so much at that moment, hated the whole of them-

'And you would have done the exact same thing if you had been in his place.' he had gaped at them in some sort of indefinable emotion for slowly ticking seconds, wanting to deny it, wanting to silence the voice. Because it's true, you know that because if those had been your orders, you would have done it… _You would have killed your teammates if they had told you to do it._ _Didn't you try to kill your own son because they told you to?_ And maybe now he wouldn't, but then he might have (had he? He didn't remember, why had he done it, anyway?) but once he definitely would have and he couldn't discuss that because they knew it- They had chosen him for a reason, hadn't they? They thought you an obedient pet. _They thought you to be easy to handle._

'You still went over me-' he had nearly gasped, horrified by the things his own brain was providing him with, the unstoppable mocking voice that he had thought to have rid himself of. 'That's treason and you know it. Even after I told you not to, you went ahead-' The youngest of the three stood up then, his own fist slamming on the table, this time actually knocking down the cup.

'Because someone needs to take the decisions you are too much of a coward to take!'

'You-' And that's the point that brought them all to this current situation, really, because up until then, the Hokage had reacted emotionally and maybe not as politically correct as the situation called, but if he had, it was understandably so.

But then, as Danzo glared at him with his remaining eye, the blond had suddenly flinched and looked at them in such a strange way, one faintly shaking hand slowly rising to cover his mouth. '...'

'You're too young to be Hokage.'

'You're too young-' the man continued, but then the blond spoke up again.

'Someone needs to take decisions, decisions at any price so… take anything? You don't know…' He hadn't been looking at anyone at that point, his head bowed and his hand just as slowly going back to his lap, and there had been so many things wrong with that sentence there was no saying who he was directing it at.

'Excuse me…?' the woman had asked, her calmed expression for once breaking into curiosity.

'No.' The blond had suddenly stood up, his bangs carefully covering his eyes and then left. They hadn't seen him for the next several hours, and when he came back he had started acting in this insufferable way, without any sort of hint to wanting to compromise or even listen to them. The elders looked at themselves, then back at the man.

'That insinuation was below the good taste.' said the man, but he didn't show his disgust 'You know very well nothing like that will happen.'

'How would I know that?' the blond said, still smiling in that corrosive way 'You killed the Uchihas and you have tried to kill my son numerous times, who knows what else you do behind my back? I sure as hell don't… No, I don't trust you with the village. I wouldn't trust you with your own families.'

The man had only looked at him in silence.

'You have to trust us.' he said finally 'You have nowhere else to go.'

The blond just smiled. The man only looked back, then rose his hand. A moment later all of the elders were leaving the place.

'I hope you will change your mind. We will be back later to hear the positive answer.'

'You do that.' the blond said with a little chuckle, leaning on his chair like if he actually found it comfortable, like if he owned the place. 'I hear hoping is healthy for people your age.'

The door clicked as the only goodbye that was provided.

There was silence for a while afterwards, broken suddenly by his thought and his own voice. _You have to leave._

'Yes.' _You should have never left in the first place…_

'That wasn't fair and you know it.' _Love made it fair._

'You didn't love me.' his hands went up to a necklace that wasn't there anymore, closing fruitlessly on nothing. 'If you had, you wouldn't have cursed me so.'

_You cursed yourself, and by extension, everyone around you._

'That was their doing.' _You've turned into poison, baby._

'You made me so.'

'Hokage-sama?' he turned, looking disinterestedly in his secretary's direction. 'Kakashi is back.'

He nodded.

'Send Asuma to debriefing and send him here.'

'…here, sir?'

'My office is rigged with cameras and microphones, Setsuna-san.' Minato said, his voice a soft and monotone. 'So yes, here.'

'Yes, sir.'

Not a minute later the very dirty, but also very excited teen entered the office.

'You called?' he gasped between breaths 'Sensei?

The blond smiled at him, by far the most normal smile he had offered… well, anyone- his son included – for the past weeks. It still didn't look quite normal.

'Welcome back, Kakashi-kun.' he said, making a gesture for the kid to come closer. 'I assume your mission went well?'

'The mission was accomplished.' said the teen as he came closer. He felt the difference between now and the past but he didn't dare to act upon it. 'The scroll was given safely.'

'As expected from the prodigy.' the blond said, his tone bordering on teasing as he finally getting up when the silver-haired jounin was close enough and reaching to ruffle his hair. Kakashi looked up at him and stiffened, not really knowing what to think of it. But he didn't move away. It didn't looked like if the blond was surprised by the reaction, not by the fact he seemed nervous by it or that he refused to budge. Kakashi… How would any of this affect him now?

'Kakashi, listen…' he pulled the boy closer, pulling him against his chest and hugging him just like he had when Kakashi had been so much younger and his father's body had been found. He was so much taller than then, the light build of his not yet finished adolescence making him seem deceptively fragile. He hadn't wanted to take care of him then, but he did now. God, what to do- he hadn't planned for this. He hadn't planned for anything at all, how could he have gotten so tangled? _Give them a chance and they'll ensnare you _she had said. Temptations never are what they seem.

'While you were gone… things happened.'

Kakashi had only looked up, frightened. The hug was nice, but it was only reserved to the moments when something really had happened. Good things. Or bad. He mostly remembered bad ones.

'What's happened?' he muttered finally, catching the man through the chest and supporting himself in the hug. He felt he would need this if he wanted to get through the news.

It shouldn't have, but it hurt Minato that Kakashi leant on him, as if he trusted him to somehow help him bear with whatever he was about to say. He couldn't leave him. He couldn't take him with him either. Oh, God… what was he going to do?

'…about two weeks ago, Itachi Uchiha massacred his clan.' he said softly, tightening his hold on the younger boy lightly. 'All of it. The only survivor is his little brother Sasuke Uchiha.'

The teen looked up at him, staring at him for a moment in complete silence. What was said… it couldn't have really been said, right? He had misheard something. Itachi…? That Itachi? But he loved his parents! And what did it mean 'the whole clan'? Itachi was only thirteen! His hearing had really had to be playing tricks on him.

'What?'

The blond smiled a bit painfully at that, the smile looking more like a grimace.

'All the Uchihas are dead, Kakashi. All but Sasuke-kun.' he stopped, horrified at what he was doing, but then, what else could he have done, given the circumstances. As the council has so clearly put it, Itachi had his orders. He couldn't put Kakashi in danger because of it. 'He saw his brother do it, and he escaped afterwards, Kakashi… Uchiha Itachi has been declared a missing nin.'

The teen had only kept starring at him, like if he saw a ghost. Then he quickly glanced sideways, very much alike the person expecting the candid camera to burst out on him in any minute. A moment later his gaze had once again looked at the man, a little more disoriented.

'Itachi?' he repeated in much more disbelieving tone. 'Dead?' It sounded almost as truthful as completely bald, thin Santa Claus working on Hawaii dressed up in the hoola dress. And at the same time, it all sounded too real to not be true. Quietly, he glued up to the man, almost melting into him as he hid his face into his chest.

'It's not going to be okay, right?' he muttered in matte tone.

'These kind of things never are, baby…' Minato said, automatically calling the boy by such an endearment despite his age really was too much for him to fit in the description. This… was the right thing, right? He hated himself for lying to Kakashi, but he didn't have any other option, it was better if he didn't know the truth, wasn't it? He couldn't afford his jounin *not* to treat the oldest remaining Uchiha like the danger he was because Itachi wouldn't hold back for them. He had to keep his family safe. And is this the way? Letting the council walk away from it as if they had done nothing at all? Wasn't that more dangerous?

It suddenly occurred to him he didn't really know how Rin had died. It had been on a mission to Grass gone wrong (or so he'd been told) and he hadn't done anything to anger the council back then (had he?) so there had been no need to make a 'lesson' out of her, had then? (But what about Kushina?) He hugged the boy more tightly, every instinct he had telling him to take this boy and Naruto and run away, but where to? _Somewhere safe._ Where?

'Kakashi… That's not it all, either.' he buried his face on the boy's neck, lowering the tone to a whisper. 'I have reasons to believe the council might have been involved on all of this.'

The boy had immediately stiffened, sharpening his hearing. Despite how vile it sounded, he couldn't get away from his ninja senses. What was taught, was learned.

'Council?' he whispered so quietly that almost none of it could be heard. 'How is that possible?'

'I can't say right now, we will talk about this when there's time.' This might be the only safe room in all of Konoha, but even then, he wasn't going to trust it.

'But listen to this: from now on, never trust anything the council tells you. If they give you a direct order, please, act like if you were to carry it out, but don't. I will trust your judgment on what you decide to do in the end.' His teeth tightened as he remembered Itachi's red eyes slowly widening, as he slowly understood Minato hadn't even been aware of what had happened. 'And never trust them if they say I agreed to anything. Is that understood?'

Kakashi kept in silence when he nodded, still tightly close to Minato. A moment later he backed away, standing stiff and bowing as he looked at the floor that seemed to be a much more interesting view than Minato's face.

'Yes.' he muttered in a broken tone 'Understood, Hokage-sama.' His view had only broken in another two pieces. Nothing more.

'Thank you.' the blond said, wanting to take him back and hug him some more, but understanding the boy needed some time to get used to what he had just been told. Unfortunately. 'Kakashi…'

'Yes, Hokage-sama?' muttered the boy, not moving from the spot.

'I know you are just back from a mission, but if you'd like, after you have rested a bit, you can go see how Sasuke-kun is doing.' He wasn't sure if this would be better or worse, but he knew how his student felt on regards of Obito's family.

'The boy is understandably shell shocked by all that's happened, but he's been insisting on going back to his home and the place-' It was a bloodbath. He couldn't believe a tiny kid like Kakashi could have done that massacre, it wasn't physically possible. The newly appointed police force had been called to investigate and they had been done for a while now, but cleaning would take much longer. He doubted some of the signs of it would ever go away.

'…it's not really fit for anyone to live in, much less a boy in his state. I'm still looking for a foster family to place him with, so if you have ideas, I'm open to them.'

Kakashi stood quietly for a moment, then opened his mouth, without looking up.

'Hamaki Mimura is living alone with his two years old daughter Hibari.' he muttered under his breath. Then he looked to the side. 'Right away.'

And then he disappeared. As much as the news had took of him, he didn't want to let the kid to be alone. He wasn't close to him or anything, but he was sure that nurses at the hospital won't give him all support he will need. The blond nodded, watching for a moment again the empty room, making a small face at the seats usually occupied by the trio of backstabbing snakes. God, he hated them. He would never forgive them for what they had done. Disgusted, he quickly stood up and immediately left, the oppressive feeling disappearing right away one he could breathe open air. He decided to enjoy it a bit more and instead of going back to his office, he went to kitchen to make himself some coffee. He was a bit surprised to find it already occupied.

'Setsuna-san?'

'Yes, Hokage-sama?' The plump woman was making herself some tea- Oolong, if his nose didn't fail him. He felt alternatively pleased and somewhat guilty to notice she was wearing more make up than she usually did. He had been working very late these past few days, and so had the woman.

'…what a disaster, eh?' The woman grimaced in a faintly scolding manner, then nodded, her eyes set on the floral cup as she poured the boiling water on the infusion. Neither broke the silence as he looked around for the instant coffee in the tiny kitchen. It wasn't until he found the granulated mix that he spoke again.

'As a woman whose opinion I respect completely, would you say it's healthy to leave a five year old living alone?' The woman looked at him, her purple-marked eyes fixed on his slightly disheveled appearance, and then back to her cup, stirring the amberish liquid slowly.

'Some of the kids who have both parents are ninja are often left alone for long periods of time.' she replied carefully. 'My mother used to as well.' Minato nodded, waiting for the woman to continue.

'It's different for us, however, we live in a clan. We always had meals together with the rest of the family, and I had my cousins to play with. My aunts would come make sure there was everything I needed, just like I check on my nieces and nephews.'

Minato wondered if it had been like that for Sasuke. He had never had a big family, even when he had had his real one, it had only ever been his father and mother. _And me? Have you forgotten again? _

'Sir?' He blinked, tired eyes focusing slowly on her dark brown ones.

'Sorry, please continue.' Setsuna gave him a look that clearly stated how she didn't think the way he acted was normal, but did as told.

'That kid is from another large family, and he's used to a lifestyle like my own, I would say. No, I don't think leaving him alone in that graveyard would do anything good for him, at all.' The blond nodded, not really having thought of it that way, but really, what would Sasuke be expected to do, all day long in an abandoned section of the village? Oh, he was sure for a while it would be crowded with well meaning people offering help and attention, but in the end, they would leave and leave him alone.

'I thought about placing him in an orphanage.' he said, noticing how Setsuna mad another face at that, and feeling even more pleased by the fact he knew her so well. 'But it also seems like a bad idea, given what happened.' How long until older kids started bullying him to death because his brother had lost a few screws and decided to murder everyone I the family? Oh, he calculated about 0.93 seconds.

'Then…?' the woman asked, wiping a smudge of her lipstick of her teacup, giving him a curious look.

'Kakashi suggested Hamaki Mimura. We fought together during the Third war. I understand he has a daughter of his own?' The short-haired brunette pursed her lips, looking through the impressive files

'He seems like a good choice, should he agree to the idea. He's about to be given a genin team, so he will be off duty for a while.'

'Won't that press much on a single father?'

'His wife's mother helps him with the little girl.' she said, and Minato wondered how the hell she found out about these things. But then again, Setsuna was Setsuna. She was all powerful and all knowing, and that's how he liked her. 'But I still think that boy should be seen by a shrink for a while yet. Who knows what the hell he had to see that night.'

The blond nodded, taking a sip of his own beverage and mulling over the matter for a moment.

'Very well. Please send Mimura-san a note and ask him to see whenever my secretary is benevolent enough to find a hole in my schedule.' he wiggled his eyebrows at her, and was a bit disappointed to see her still giving him the same unhappy look from before. He looked back at her, confused by the silence. The older woman took her time taking another sip of steaming tea before sighing.

'With due respect, sir, you look like crap.' she said bluntly, making the blond blink at her. He didn't think he had heard the woman even use the word 'crap' in all the years he'd known her. 'I think you should take off the rest of the day and go see your son.'

'Naruto?' he asked somewhat stupidly, as if she could be referring to some other carbon copy of himself he had running around. 'He's fine, Maito-kun offered to take care of him while we finish settling things over.' The woman slowly raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow.

'Sir, I won't lower myself to repeating a whole sentence to show you what's so terribly wrong with your words.' she crossed her arms under her impressive rack, making his eyes automatically wonder to the Tsunade-worthy chasm between them, before looking back up at her with a smile. 'The office is under order and there is no pressing matter I can't solve on my own. I will arrange for Mimura to come by tomorrow, now please go home, take a shower and sleep. Your popularity will suffer if you keep looking like something the cat dragged in.'

'Ah, Setsuna-san, you wound me, you do.' Minato clutched at his heart dramatically. 'Don't you know that when the ship starts sinking, the last to leave is the captain?'

'I happen to know what you did to your team whenever you had to fare on boats, Hokage-sama.' The brunette smiled cockily 'Konohagakure is indeed very luckily it's not a boat if one must fare with a captain like you.'

The blond chuckled, making a small, helpless gesture, but thought the woman was right. He hadn't slept in almost a whole week. It sounded ridiculous, but it was true- he needed sleep. Even if he wasn't sure he would be able to get it.

'Okay, but tomorrow I shall be on extra early to make it up to you.'

'Then be extra early on your own, I'm not getting up any early for you.' the woman cried, throwing her arms up. 'You wanna make it up, buy some chocolates.'

'Yes, Mistress.'

'The kind you waste on Suna dignitaries!'

'Yes, yes.' _…And what about Daichi?_ Oh, he didn't even want to go there.

But he was not given to be go to sleep so early, even if gods knew, he deserved it. No more than fifteen minutes later, the grey-haired teen teleported right into his room with the smallest Uchiha in his arms, crying like if there was no tomorrow. In some sense, for him there wasn't.

'I couldn't find him in the hospital.' said Kakashi, giving his sensei helpless look 'So I went to search for him at the places he would most likely be. I found him in his parents' main room.' he opened his mouth to say something more, but particularly loud cry interrupted him. He stopped to blink and when it quieted a little he continued.

'Yes. That room.' And nope, they didn't even manage to wipe the floor from the blood. The thing took too much effort without simple trivial things. The kid was reaching dehydration the way it went and as much as he wanted to help, he had no idea how to stop that. No hugging helped, along with kind words and simple truths. Naruto didn't teach him much more on regards of that.

The blond, other than taking that promised shower and changing into a sleeping yukata had done absolutely no effort for falling asleep. He actually looked sort of thankful by the interruption.

'It's okay, Kakashi-kun.' the blond said calmly, tying the know in his yukata more firmly and extending his arms for the little kid. Kakashi moved aside, clearing his way toward the kid. Sasuke didn't seem to mind that his hand was let go and only stood there, looking at the floor and crying his heart out. The blond sighed, not really surprised by the reaction. Kneeling down in front of the kid, he didn't try to touch him right away.

'Sasuke-kun?'

The kid hiccupped, once, twice, shaking in the whole as he kept on crying. And then out of sudden he opened his mouth and let out a long yowl.

'Brothe~~r!' Kakashi blinked, surprised. If anything, he suspected the kid to be crying out after his parents more than their killer. Carefully, Minato extended a hand and threaded it through the silky black locks, noting that if anything the boy also could use a bath. He really didn't want to think about the obvious rust-colored stains on his knees.

'Sasuke-kun…'

The boy had only shook his head in protest and cried louder, once again calling his brother. He didn't move closer and didn't make any notion he felt the caress that was provided to him through Hokage's hands. He probably either barely noticed or didn't care. Or maybe even both. Grimacing, Minato shook his head and just picked the little boy up, adjusting him in his hip.

'Kakashi, go take a shower.' he told the older boy, who had just came back from a half-month long mission and had gone straight to take care of what he had correctly assumed to be the first priority. 'You are tired enough as it is, I'll take care of Sasuke-kun.'

The teen looked at him with blank stare, then glanced at still crying child, obviously hesitating. Then he looked back at Minato and nodded.

'Yes, Hokage-sama.' he said and vanished. The child still kept crying at the blond's side, for a change reacting to the change of position with a simple supporting hold onto the yukata. His cry once again turned into wordless bawling.

Minato stared at the unoccupied space for a moment, feeling impossibly tired and drawn, but other than that, he didn't do or say anything. There was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do that would change the way the kid felt, or anything he could say that would alter the situation, and if anything, a little part of him wondered if maybe it wasn't better than the kid was wailing like this. From what he head, he hadn't really reacted the first couple days at the hospital.

'_Please, take care of my little brother…' _

Well… he would try. It was the least he could do.

Adjusting the boy's weight (who seemed to be a bit lighter than Naruto, despite the fact Naruto was obviously shorter), he sat up on the windowsill and adjusted the small form on his lap, wrapping the wide sleeves of the yukata around him to keep him warm and close.

'I have a son your age, you know?' he said quietly, not trying to get over the sobs of the kid, just some soothing background nonsense. 'His name is Naruto. He's probably running around chasing the sunset with one leg strapped to his neck or whatever new sort of grandiose training technique Maito-kun has thought of nowadays. I guess I can't complain because, the results are indisputable, but the methods really do leave much to desire… But those leg warmers really do look adorable on Naru, don't they? I wish he wouldn't put so many weight on them, though, it's amazing he hasn't overtaxed his legs with them. The other day….'

Sasuke opened his teared, puffy eyes for a few moments to look at Minato speaking, but after the speech rolled on, he closed them again and pushed at the man's chest with all his might, obviously wanting to be let go.

'Naruto is stu-u-upiiid!' he cried out loudly. What did he care about Hokage's son? Who cared about what he did when he was not here at all? His parents were dead, his brother was gone and he was all alone and his Hokage acted like if some stupid leg warmers on his own blond copy mattered much more. 'I want to go ho-o-ome!'

The blond didn't tighten at all the hold, but he also didn't let go of the small child.

'Why?' he asked instead.

'I want to go ho-o-ome!' repeated Sasuke. Obviously, the question missed his hearing. 'I want I-ta-chiii!'

'Sasuke.' keeping an arm around the boy's shoulders, he used the other to tilt his shin up. 'Why do you want to go to that place? You will only be alone there.'

The kid had only let out a louder cry and pushed at the man again, obviously displeased by the fact he was still being held. He stubbornly refused to answer the questions as he just kept crying his eyes red.

'I'm not going to let go, Sasuke-kun.' he said calmly, leaning back calmly as if the kid was actually cooperating with the being held. Then again, a little kid's force was hardly something very upsetting... at least from a physical point of view. 'You can fight and cry all you want, but you are not going to be left alone.'

The boy had finally looked up, so moved by the words his cry had actually quieted down for a moment. He looked down at himself and pushed a little more at the arm that was holding it, like if he was testing if it really was not going to be let go. Then he looked at the man again, his face once again falling apart in the grimace of despair, but just before it fell, his brows furrowed, flashing with anger in his eyes.

'I hate you!' he said in a rebellious tone, much more quieter, but all shaking at the same time 'I hate!... I hate!... Itachiii!...'

The last word was only a helpless cry again, holding nothing but need for comforting. He didn't want to be alone, but at the same time he didn't want to be here at all too. He wanted to be at home, with his mom making a dinner and his dad reading a newspaper and his brother training on the fields… before he thought it was all cold and awkward and unpleasant, but now he wanted it more than anything on the world. To be like then. Like before.

'I know you do-'and God, he barely kept himself from calling this one 'baby' as well. Any more babies and he'd have to start considering tying his tubes that-he-didn't-really-have.

'And I know you will, for a while, but I hope someday you will see this was for the best. Right now, you have every right to hate me and anyone else you want, but I don't hate you. None of what happened is your fault and you are not going to be left alone because of it.' he gently pulled the boy closer to his chest stroking his lightly sweaty hair. '…hell, you'll be lucky if you get Kakashi to give you half a dozen meters of space for the next weeks.'

'I don't want… Kakashi!' mumbled the kid right into the blond's chest the kid, not pushing at him anymore. A moment later it changed as he started hitting him with his tightly shut fists, too weakly to do any harm but clearly showing how frustrated he felt by unfairness of all of this. 'I wanna go home! I wanna my dad! I want mother! I want… I want… brother!' The wailing emerged into a tired sobbing as he kept just hitting the man and didn't unglue his face from him at the same time. Not a few moments passed as Minato's shirt needed an urgent change for something drier.

'I know, Sasuke.' the blond repeated tiredly, still holding him gently 'But your family would have wanted you to be safe, and so we'll do our best to make sure you are.'

The kid once again shook his head, finally stopping his abusive punching and just hooked onto the man with both of his hands, continuing on wailing. As the time passed, his voice got more hoarse and quiet, until it changed into light hiccup. By then, his eyes were closed in a dim excuse of a nap that took him away from reality. If anything, the thumb that found its way to his mouth a moment later was a clear indication of that the Morpheus got mercy on him.

Minato kept stroking his hair gently until he was sure the little boy fell into deeper sleep, then carefully moved him to his own bed, covering him with the blankets and changing back into his clothes. There was no way he would be able to fall asleep after that, and he was too afraid of what his brain would conjure to torture him with if he gave it a chance to think up something. Instead, he bit his thumb and summoned a small light green toad, apparently caught in the middle of placing a heavy coat of lipstick on. Minato wisely acted as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

'Gamariki-san, would you please take care of him for a little while?' he said quietly, making a gesture to the tuft of dark hair peeking from the top of the blankets. The way it stuck out made him think for some reason of the rear end of a duck, which provably showed how sleep deprived he really was.

'Of course, Mina-chan.' the creature said with a wink, adjusting itself in on the end of the bed and for all appearances getting comfortable. 'I didn't know you were into babysitting, though, I thought your Naru-chan kept your hands full?'

'Yes.' Minato answered distractedly, fiddling around until he found his necklace and placing it back on. 'Thank you for your help.'

He decided to go find Kakashi and make sure he hadn't fallen asleep on the tub again. Once he made sure he was all right, he'd go get Naruto, after all that had happened, he didn't want him out of his sight for more than a couple hours. Kakashi did not fall asleep in the tube – he had mastered sleeping in the standing position in the shower well enough to pretend he was not wasting time. That usually led him to wasting water and woke him up with a nice spray of cold. This time however he had managed to get out of it before he had gotten such a waker and he decided to stand nearby the kid to make sure Uchiha wouldn't escape again. Kid was a kid, but he also was a good ninja already and with kids being quick that made him also a good runner. And besides, his good will didn't let him do it the other way.

Minato, of course, let him feel manly and very watchdog like for all of the time it took him to drag the teen's futon into his own room, and then he ordered Kakashi to get in bed and wait there because after such a cry Sasuke wasn't going to get up any time soon without a good reason; and the silver-haired teen was exhausted. Besides, Gamariki was there to watch the two of them. Unreliable as the amphibian might look, he was one of Jiraiya's most trusted summons.

'So for Leaf's sake, just go sleep already, Kakashi.'

'No.' said the teen stubbornly as he sat covered by the quilt in his pajamas and shuriken in his hand. 'What if Itachi comes back? I need to stay awake.'

Minato made an obvious shushing gesture towards the sleeping kid, not wanting him to be upset by the name.

'Kakashi-kun, I sincerely doubt he was considerate enough to wait for you to come back from a mission to make an attack right now. If he's got any self-preservation instinct he's probably well out Fire country right now.'

'No.' said Kakashi again.

The blond sighed again, leaning down to ruffle his students' hair.

'Kakashi-kun…' his hand moved lower, petting down the boy's jaw gently until he found what he was looking for. 'I wasn't asking.' He was glad he had listened to Tsunade-sensei when she taught him how to put pressure on the carotid sinus- Sure, he would never be good enough to do it in the middle of a fight efficiently, but when handling a stubborn, unsuspecting teen, it was perfectly safe and efficient. Kakashi went down like a feather, and then it was just a matter of tucking him like an innocent little kid.

'A real pity, you not getting a daycare, Mina-chan.' Gamariki had produced a fan from somewhere and was coyly smiling from behind it at the blond. 'You really have talent when it comes to kids.' He smiled tiredly at the creature, then ruffled Kakashi's hair carefully. _How did Rin die, Minato? Who was she with at the time?_ 'Wake him up if anything happens, please.' he said, zipping on his jounin vest. 'I'm going to go get Naruto.'

A few days passed and the only Uchiha survivor seemed to calm down bit by bit. It was not a calm happy state as he kept on wandering off alone and keeping on staring at things in gloomy atmosphere, but he pretty quickly stopped making tantrums about things that were attached to him. So he was now eating everything if he was told to eat, he was getting up when he was told to get up and he was not complaining about company, food, clothes, surroundings and anything at all. He also stopped crying and talking about his family whatsoever.

Kakashi didn't find it a good sign, but he decided to be happy about the fact the kid wasn't trying to run away from him anymore wherever he trailed him. Sometimes Sasuke seemed to even listen to him when he tried to get a contact. But his submissive lack of any effort to also contact the world stayed the same, even when he was located at the new family with single parent and a young cute girl of a daughter. It seemed they were not going to get along at all as Sasuke seemed to be oblivious to something labeled as 'sister'. He only acknowledged Itachi.

'I wonder…' he mumbled to himself as he watched the ceiling 'What will grow out of him…' Probably something he'd e curious to see.

'From who?' asked Gai near his side, as hyper as ever. Kakashi politely ignored him. Naruto snorted just as politely. Maybe that had to do with the fact the little blond looked barely conscious, and much less able to move from the slump he had curled in. With Kakashi busy with trailing the Uchiha, Minato had taken to leave Naruto with Gai. At any other moment of his life he might have been very concerned to see what sort of habits his son would pick from the taijutsu master, cooking abilities being the last on the list, but he simply didn't have time.

The village was still railed up by what had happened, the council kept pressuring to go to that stupid summit and Kakashi kept hinting that now was a very good time for him to tell him why exactly he suspected the council to have orchestrate the murder of a whole clan overnight. The fact he didn't know what he'd tell his student when the time came didn't help matters. The truth was out of the question, because it would imply he had known it was coming from the start, and even if he had done anything he could to stop this disaster… Well, Kakashi would understand his position and his silence. What he doubted was that he'd be able to forgive it.

Day after day he'd sit in his chair signing report after report of ANBU squads that had been dispatched to find Itachi, feeling sick with dread they'd find Itachi, and if they did, weather he'd speak or not, and what he would say… No matter how he looked at it, the best that could happen in this case for Itachi to die quietly somewhere else or just disappear.

'But things never just disappear.' he muttered, fingers trailing over his necklace, link after link until they hit the missing one, fingers twitching for one moment before continuing on their path 'You just pile stuff on top of it and hope you will be able to forget about it.'

He couldn't stop and think about Daichi right now. The idea of stopping and analyzing so many things terrified him, because it would mean there was a path there, some deeply intricate mess of threads he hadn't just overlooking but gruesomely ensnarled by his mere out of place existence. If he thought about Daichi, he would think about Gaara and Karura, he would think about Chiyo and how this would affect everything, and how it all lead him back to Kushina and from there… Sandaime-sama. _Tricked_ a voice purred inside his head. He didn't even know who it belonged to anymore. Why hadn't he seen it before?

_Are you so sure you didn't?_ No, he wasn't. In fact, he was sure he had, because back then he hadn't trusted anything, certainly not that baby that looked so much like himself yet reeked to the poisonous chakra that had nearly killed him. No, he was sure he had thought exactly of that, asked the exact necessary 'why's and 'when's, because that's what sick people like he did. And he had just done what he always did and pushed that thought so far into his mind a search squad of nindogs wouldn't find it.

Because he was a mess and wouldn't have been able to put himself back together on his own. Because he had needed someone to trust, and he wasn't ready yet to face that person and admit that from the one he was alone in this, without a chance of escaping or getting rid of the accumulating baggage. You are running out of time, baby. That much was true. Time would pass weather he did it with it or not.

'Setsuna-san, could you please wrap up things for me?' he smiled at his secretary, who just frowned in response. As of late the blond smiled all the more, and between how ill he looked and how fake the smiles were, she wouldn't be surprised if she started having nightmares about it any day now. 'I thought you have a meeting with the council, sir.'

'I always have meetings with the council, Setsuna-san.' the Hokage said even more brightly as he shrugged off the robes and threw them over his desk where they miraculously didn't know any report down. 'You can tell them I haven't changed my mind and that I have better things.'

The woman frowned even more. It seemed that since the incident, the council was putting a lot of pressure on her boss, making him react very poorly in retaliation.

'Too rough?' the blond's grin widened 'How about some poetry? Let's try with roses are red, violets are blue, and I'm still not going so fu-'

'Just go already.' the brunette turned around with a despotic gesture of the wrist. 'I'll make up some proper excuse.'

'And here I was feeling so very artistic…'

'Perish the thought.'

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Yo.' The blond waved lightly to the spandex-clad jounin as he methodically destroyed a poor training dummy. It was also enough to make him nostalgic, if he wasn't so sure he wasn't thinking about redhead doing the exact same thing fifteen years ago.

The boy had immediately stopped the training and straightened like a bow, shining with sweat, eagerness and more sweat, even on his fluorescent green spandex. Gai surely knew how to grab attention even when he didn't care about it.

'Hokage-sama!' he all but boomed loudly as he bowed deeply forward, showing the respect in his own way 'What pleasure, once again! I assure you that Naruto-sama is safe with me, his will of fire and youth is kept intact!'

The Hokage gave the jounin a slightly curious smile, before turning his eyes to look at the heap of orange sprawled on the ground.

'I see.' he reached down for said bundle, picking him under the arms and picking him up that seemed to be reserved for parents. Naruto's eyes snapped open in fright at the sudden movement, then immediately relaxed as he recognized the person holding him.

'Daddy.' the little blond whined pitifully, slumping on his grip and burying his face on his father's shoulder 'I can't feel my legs. Are they still there?'

'Unless you carried more than just the usual pair around, I'd say they are.' he chuckled a little as the comment was met with a pained groan and Naruto wrapping his arms around his neck in an exhausted fashion. Maybe he should have given sitter duties to Gai before this, the one who was usually groaning on the floor and ready to collapse by the end of the day was Kakashi. 'Maito-kun-' he started, stopping to wince as a particularly bright ray of sunlight bounced off the young man's perfect teeth and nearly blinded him in the process. He'd have to note himself to remember and put Gai on the first row of offence next war they had. 'I know I've been imposing on you terribly these last weeks, I can't thank you enough for your help.'

'Think nothing of it, Hokage-sama!' said the teen, flashing his teeth once again along with showing his pose of a nice guy as he decided to call it (after it being the 'superhero mood' and 'the cherry on the top'). 'It's my duty and pleasure, I'm glad I can train such a fierce young man! His spirit is admirable!'

The blond gave another look to the boneless mass draped on his chest, before shrugging and giving it a little squeeze.

'Go get dressed.' he said, placing the little blond back on the floor. Naruto just gave him a confused look before shrugging and going to put on his discarded jacket back. His father wanted to talk adults stuff. Minato waited until Naruto was a safe enough distance before turning back to the younger man with a small not-exactly happy smile. 'I take Kakashi's gone to stalk Sasuke-kun some more?' There wasn't accusation in his voice, just some sort of bitter version of what was usually plain good humor on the Hokage.

'Ah, so cruel for you to mention that, Hokage-sama!' he said, flailing his fists in despair 'My eternal rival also does take good care of a child and he does indeed make a good work of it, it's hard to compete with his eagerness!...' Especially as it seemed that Kakashi had finally managed to break the worst barriers and he made the eternal bond with the little orphaned Uchiha! Oh, that was so wicked to watch him feed the little Sasuke from the spoon like a protective older brother, and it was such an unbearable pain when Naruto opposed to such treating also! How could he compete with the adorable antipathy of Uchiha which so eagerly pushed Kakashi's effort away, this glint of deceiving disgust in those big innocent black eyes? There was no match for such bond! Oh, his life was a misery.

The blond sweat dropped a little in response to the loud and overenthusiastic response, making a gesture to ask him to lower down the volume of conversation. Of course there was no way Naruto didn't know what they were talking about now, but he already disliked the idea that Kakashi was neglecting him in favor of the youngest Uchiha.

'I sincerely doubt anyone can bet you in eagerness, Maito-kun.' the blond straightened a little, hands disappearing on his pockets 'I actually wanted to ask you if you think Kakashi is okay.'

Gai glanced at him, for a moment having his face all serious and wondering. Then he lowered his head down, lost in thought.

'He seems to be swept by the charm of this unlucky young man.' he said finally 'Why, is there something wrong with my eternal rival?'

The blond just smiled lightly. Gai was overbearing and loud and sincerely tiring at times, but he was loyal and he did care for Kakashi, which was enough to place him in the list of people Minato sincerely liked.

'No, I'm just concerned about him, I don't want him pressuring himself too much.' Too late for, but that had been so for as long as he had known Kakashi. He had pushed himself nearly to death when the village started whispering about his father and after Sakumo- he wondered what was the silver-head trying to compensate, a debt to a dead teammate or the phantom of a father that had abandoned him when he needed him the most. '…I just worry.' he finished absently 'If you notice anything, would you please tell me so?'

'You can count on me for sure!' was said once again in the dramatizing loud voice as Gai threw another nice guy pose and flashed his snow white teeth. 'No matter what or who, but I will surely observe anything that might be wrong with Kakashi! Nobody observes him more than I do, his most rivalish rival!' Though he already thought that Kakashi acting so gluey as a bit uncommon, but who knew, seemed like Hatake had soft spot for people who didn't like him.

Minato smiled back, reaching to give the younger man a small squeeze a shoulder that seemed to be composed of a shockingly amount of muscle and sinew, but didn't withdraw his hand.

'Maito-kun.' All of the sudden, the Hokage's voice sounded different than just a moment ago, even though there was no perceptive change of pitch or emphasis. If he hadn't been having a conversation with the brunette a moment ago, the change probably wouldn't even register. 'What do you think of Naruto?'

The boy blinked, then looked at the exhausted heap of a kid.

'A very energetic young man!' he said, almost laughing 'I hope I will have such a boy as a student in the future!'

That answer didn't seem to be what Minato was expecting, because he looked at the younger man like if he had just asked him out on a date in an unknown language. He had expected- well… But Gai had never so much as hinted anything like that, had he? If anything, his own secretary had been openly upset the first times she had seen him, even though Naruto had grown on her over the past years to the point he'd almost feel comfortable enough to ask her to take care of him.

Maybe his student wasn't wrong to have suggested Gai as replacement nanny after all.

'Ah-' The blond blinked a few times, before finally removing his hand and smiling at the other man, this time sincerely. For almost the first time in a month. 'Thank you, Maito-kun... I'm glad Kakashi has you as a friend.'

'It's my pleasure!' said Gai and bowed down deeply in the respectful bow 'I recommend you my services for the future, Hokage-sama!

The blond thanked him, running a hand through the spiky blond hair. 'I will, and thank you again. Come on, Naru,' he said, his hand closing over his son's when Naruto immediately ran to him and took it. Or at least he tried to, because as soon as he tugged to move away Naruto dug his hills in the snow and looked up at him expectantly. With a sigh, Minato turned around obediently, prompting the little blonde to quickly climb up his back, tired arms wrapping around the older man's neck and snuggling into his neck.

Apparently near-death tiredness born from workout-overwork or not, Naruto was still in a very social mood.

'You won't guess daddy! Today Gai took me to the training grounds to watch the genins and when I asked him if I could do that he said I had to wait, but I asked and asked and then he started to cry and said I was very youthful and went on and on about it, but I didn't mind because that meant he let me and did take me to try target practice, and I got almost all of them right- well, some of them, but then he said I had to keep practicing until I got them all right or we would have to run around the training ground sixty times-'

The older blond nodded absently, going back through the path on automatic because he wasn't even looking ahead of himself, much less thinking about it.

'-And Kashi promised to take me to Ichiraku's when he came back from his mission and he's been back for weeks and he *still* hasn't taken me, and, you know? He's sneaking out, and he's not taking me to talk to mommy anymore, he sneaks out before I'm awake and goes talk alone, and then he needs to go see Sasuuuke-'

'Yes.'

'-and he's all day after him and doesn't have time to train me anymore because he wants to go see that stupid Sasuke, and it's not fair! You said that if I got the bells Kashi would train me, but he's always away, so how can I even *get* the bells if he's never around for me to get them?'

'Hm.'

'And stupid Ebisu wants me to learn all of the spots on the borders that belong to us, but that's stupid because you say it's ours and the other villages say it's theirs and in the end it's ours and theirs, but neither can do anything because it belongs to the other so it's just a big bunch of – of *stuff* that doesn't matter because it doesn't get used-'

'Right.'

'-and Neji caught a cold and now Hinata has one too so I can't come visit and I'm all alone all day because Kashi doesn't- 'a frustrated snort 'Daddy!'

'Hm?' the only reason the blond answered was because the loud noise startled him lightly out of his inner… whatever his mind had been doing while running off without inviting him. The blond squeezed his eyes shut and tightened the hold he had on his father's neck.

'You are not listening!' With one hand, the older blond reached over one shoulder to tousle the soft blonde spikes.

'I guess I'm not… Sorry Naru.'

Naruto was stubbornly burrowed against his shoulder for several moments, but eventually resurface, pressing his shin against the joint in his shoulder in a faintly painful way.

'…daddy, are you sick?' He couldn't really see his expression, but he knew well enough that range of tone on the younger boy, the concern and slight fear of it making him feel like utter trash. What was he doing, worrying his son in this way?

'No, no Naruto. I'm fine, it's just-'

'All the lot of bad things all together?' He grunted softly some vague answer, not rally in the mood to pick through that awkwardly phrased, yet rather accurate inquiry. It really was scary, how intuitive he could be sometimes. Another thing he had in common with his mother. 'Don't worry daddy, you'll fix it.' He almost stumbled at that, at that dead certainty- why did Naruto think he could fix this disaster when Minato wasn't sure what he was supposed to do? What had happened to the Uchihas, what was happening and how was he supposed to keep living like this, after finding out what was happening- what had really happened…?

'…baby?'

'Yah?' bright blue eyes peeked over his shoulder, the little blond plastered to his back. It was a warm, pleasantly heavy (if slightly sweaty) weight and Minato couldn't imagine his life without it. He couldn't imagine a life without it in it.

'What if…' to say it. To admit it out loud, if only for a moment and letting himself think- just to once ask '…if we left the village?'

'Huh?' Naruto wiggled even higher on his perch, now practically holding himself up by the hands on his shoulders as he tried to look at him, and he caught him before he lost his balance and toppled forward 'We are going to the summit?'

'…Yeah.' he sighed, adjusting the little boy on his front again 'I guess we are.'


	37. Chapter Thirty Seven: Venomous Poison

Daichi didn't want to go to the summit. Not when he heard that the Hokage decided to skip it. He felt like if he had no reason to do that anymore. He spent two days on sulking about this. The third day he woke up with the new idea: going to summit and terrorizing all the guests – even the legendary Mizukage to the point that they would have no other choice but drag the blond in. And if that wouldn't work, it was still closer to Konoha from the place of summit than from Suna. It was a good opportunity either way (and he could even make some paths, wow).

So when he arrived to the place of the happening, he was in the mildly sour but tamed mood. That was also the reason why he passed the corridors without even noticing anything abnormal, and only when the stated summit decided to gather in the place, he finally saw what he did not expect to see. Minato was on the meeting. He looked like if someone chew on him and spat him out, but he was still there.

His sour mood immediately changed into the melancholic-full-of-adoration-generally-happiness mode and immediately made him want to hug the man for that he decided to come and scold him for looking like if he went through hell to do that. And then hug him more and scold him more. Because he hadn't seen him for so long and because he actually gave him a stress back then. Only a very loud sound of clearing the throat had got him back to reality as he saw that everyone was staring at him. He lost the track on reality, apparently.

'The Fourth Kazekage.' he said simply to introduce himself 'Suna's leader.' It was curt but it was okay for him. Nobody had to know his name here, even if they were noble.

The redhead was the one furthest away from the meeting point when compared with the other villages, explaining why the messenger hawk had arrived well after the Kazekage had left the capitol. Under normal circumstances Minato might have realized this and been thoughtful enough to torture his poor desert familiar to find the redhead, but given what had happened before he left, he'd barely been able to nod when Setsuna suggested to send a hawk warning the other kages to expect his arrival.

Daichi hadn't been the only one to notice the way the blond looked either. It didn't even look like he had bothered to try and hide it or even lessen the damage, the red and black coat he wore to replace the white and red one made the pallor of his skin stand out all the more. That had always been a problem with Minato, his total inability to hide the fact he felt sick because he just had the kind of unfortunate skin that shower right away when he felt ill or had suffered blood loss. There were bruise-like shadows under his eyes and the humidity of the air had his hair drooping slightly into a more tamed mess, giving him a softer, somewhat feminine look.

Despite all of this, the blond managed not to look fragile, and the expression on his eyes was anything but weak. Minato was resting on his seat in a comfortable slouch and was alternatively staring off into nothing or answering the death glares the Raikage randomly threw in his direction with a smile ranging just on the side between amused and carnivorous.

'Greetings, Kazekage-sama.' he said smoothly, though he didn't look away from the dark skinned man he was engaging on a stare off with. He wasn't done seeing if he could make the man have a stroke solely out of suppressed hatred, and He didn't want to see Daichi right now. It would be too much.

Daichi had only nodded in response, but as the blond didn't look away from the Third Raikage, he slowly tore his eyes off his and moved toward the rest of the table, looking at the man from water lands who had his whole face behind a thick curtain of the material and the old Onoki.

'It would probably be the end for his old bones soon.' he thought quietly to himself 'His hips are killing him, and that's usually a bad sign at such age.' He pitied him a bit, regretting his kids won't grow up to meet with him. Maybe he was not the most interesting kage on the whole world, but he was surely something you wanted to see on your own. But then, it was the old man's fault he had problems in life. So maybe it was better.

'We're opening the Kage Summit.' said Mifune, the mediator, who never seemed to change, no matter how many times Daichi saw him. Somehow, he suspected he might have been a druid or a pagan god who decided to live undercover 'First, we will start off with the issues between the Land of Stones and The Land of Thunder…' The old man started talking and slowly, carefully, the talk started blending into the back of his mind, making him lose interest and understanding in what was said. With the corner of his eye he saw the blond looking cheap, trashy and not too good and also not taking much part in the discussion that seemed to start heating over.

He didn't like the way it looked. But he also didn't like the fact he had to resort to such things as his skills to actually get something out of this. As Minato proclaimed not coming to the summit, they didn't even begin on wondering how and when would be their 'private time'. So, Daichi decided to take matters in his own hands.

He crossed his hands under his chin, and as he had his sheet of material over his face, it also partially covered his fingers. On the other side of it he had smeared five dots of different poisons he could use to knock himself out instantly if his lips ever had touched one of them. It took years to practice how to wear such material and talk without licking off the things of it. And now, it was very helpful. The powder he had smeared upon his thumb was transparent, small and gave only a blueish tint.

The weakest cheating potion for an ultimate spasm of coughs that could go as the poisoning and get him out of whatever boring meeting he was on. But as now he had to get out not only alone but with the man also, he had simply made a wave of the hand toward the blond, very similar to the one when the bug bit the skin. Thanks to his small amount of chakra, the powder polluted the air for a moment and landed partially – because the rest was lost on the journey – inside Minato's cup. Voila. Now he had to wait for the effects.

There was no sign the blond noticed the poison landing on his water, so it was difficult to say If the fact he waited until Konoha had updated the treaties between them and both Thunder and Rock before so much as taking one sip of the water. He casually did so as they were updating Mifune on what had already been privately decided between Suna and Konoha while the Kazekage had been on the lead just a couple months ago.

'And here I thought Konoha you had finally outgrown running off after Suna like puppy.' the white-haired man said just low enough to be able to pass it off as a muttered remark. This time Minato actually turned his head to fix him with a look, lips slowly curling into a sleepy, sweet smile.

'We decided to go back to being best friends forever.' he said softly, and given the fact the man had only thrown a random jab at him without asking any sort of reply and how little sense his own answer had made, it was solely for the benefit of making the man angry.

'Hadn't you two had a fallout?' the man spat back, an eyebrow twitching slightly.

'Yes, but I forgave him.' he said as he took a second sip of water. '… I'm a very forgiving person, you see.' One of the masked ANBU behind him shifted slightly, and he wondered if Hizashi was finding this as horribly amusing as he did. He doubted it, given how inclined towards humor the man normally was, but surely he'd think such levels of irony directed towards the Raikage were only to be expected of his 'destiny' after what he'd tried to do to his brother and what had nearly happened to him.

The redhead on the other hand, kept on keeping an eye of the blond every now and then, but beside that, he was engulfed in a steady, treacle talk with Mizukage – which seemed to be dangerous and threatening to his very position. Fabulous.

'Dear Kazekage-sama, you seem to be in a very good condition.' said the man drawing the quotes like long knives. It practically meant 'Why aren't you dead yet.'

'I happened to be sick some time ago, but I licked my wounds out of it. Thank you for asking.' said Daichi in the same tone. Which meant 'Just to disturb your very presence a bit longer'.

'That's good, very good. (we will fix that soon) I thought that since you're feeling so well we could talk about the matters of rain clouds being blocked by the newest dunes of the sand on the northern side.' (take your shitty sand offa my lawn, heffa, I warn you)

'Oh? Is it disturbing you? Forgive me, I had no idea.' (your lawn? Hahahahaha)

'Yes. It seems that it passes the circulation of the wet air and disturbs our country weather.' (so get it off) 'I believe there is something that can be done about it.' (get it off now, or I'll screw you over)

'I also do believe that. (I don't take it from anyone) But I'm afraid that some of my people might be living there by now.' (so… in your face, hahahahaha).

Ah, the lovely mood of political talks over the kage's tea.

The first few coughs went unnoticed by the table, possibly by the owner himself. When after an hour they not only didn't recede but started appearing more frequently, his ANBU wordlessly changed the water for something that tasted faintly minty to help his throat calm down, but of course, by then the damage had been done.

The redhead observed this with the corner of his eye, still bussing himself with the talk he had with the Mizukage (which went, to make story short: 'Get out of my country' 'Lol, no.' 'Angry face.' 'Roflmao.'). He saw the water being changed, but it was futile by now. The poison was already at the back of Minato's throat and that was all that it needed. He sat calmly, ignoring it, only a one particularly loud cough made both the Raikage and Tsuchikage stop their conversation, and naturally – Suna-Mizu sweet talks also. He slowly turned his head toward the blond, trying to look as disturbed as the others, which didn't take much considering he had his veil on.

'By dear gods.' he said finally as no one spoke anything, only watching the blond curling up in the coughing attacks 'Are you all right there, Hokage-sama?'

'Yes, of course.' the blond managed to sound saccharine sweet even between coughs 'I was just feeling n-neglected and wanted some atten-' whatever he wanted to say next was cut off by even more violent coughing. His ANBU took this as a sign as good as any other to cut this meeting short. While the one with the bird mask helped the blond up, the female walked towards Mifune, excusing them for the time being while the blond was quickly extracted from the room before he could leave his lungs on the polished table.

'Interesting.' said the Mizukage, watching the door rather greedily after they closed 'I didn't know that the Hokage had such a sickness on himself.' Daichi had only blinked from his position and looked back at the other kages. It seemed that the old man decided to go to the restaurant to have warm meal in-between, as such breaks usually didn't happen, the Raikage shortly on his heels. Whatever the duo was up to it was better to not leave them alone, but that was how the world had changed anyway. He looked back at the Mizukage.

'Indeed.' he muttered 'Me neither.' Then simply stood up and exited through the same door.

'We will resume this meeting in two hours.' said Mifune as he exited the room 'If by then the Hokage cannot be there, the meeting will be called off due the further date.'

'That's problematic.' said Mizukage. He didn't hear the rest. The door closed and he quietly strolled down the corridor.

'Baki.' he muttered. The shadow of the man instantly appeared behind his back 'I'm going to visit Hokage-sama. You know what does that mean.'

'Yes.' said Baki, a bit repulsed. Frankly, it meant to keep an eye on everything but one certain room. The one that the redhead had only entered- no, wait, the other one. The first was empty. With a sigh, Baki vanished.

#+#+#+#+#+#

'Kazekage-sama.' was the voice of one of the ANBUs, obviously strained from panic he didn't want to show. As much as the medic of the country tried to look up where was the injury, he couldn't find what he was searching for, while Minato now coughed up quite nice big blotches of the red. Daichi felt an urge to smile. If anyone tried to doubt the blood for a moment, they'd discover it was a colored thickened saliva. But obviously, everyone instantly assumed that since it was red and the blond couldn't now even say a word between the cough, that it had to be an injury.

'I was wondering if everything was all right.' he had just stated plainly 'I didn't know that Hokage-sama was so sick.'

Minato said something amidst a fit of coughing. It didn't sound particularly civil, so it was probably a good thing for everyone involved his throat self censored it, especially considering that after traveling with Jiraiya for several years, Minato had picked up a particularly colorful language.

'This is troublesome.' said one of the ANBUs, still more than alerted. 'We have discovered it's a poison, but we don't know what is it, we suspect the coup-'

'Shut up!' hissed some female ANBU behind him, making Daichi smile a bit, obviously, they were a pair. 'Don't spill the data to anyone!'

'I know!' said the man, sounding a bit annoyed as he stroked his head behind his ponytail 'Only that Kazekage-sama is skilled with poisons, so I was wondering…'

The sentences was left in the air as every head in the room turned toward him. Except Minato, everyone were dead still for a second. Daichi couldn't help but smile under his mask. Then he uncrossed his arms and slowly came up to the man. 'Let go of him.' He said to the medical ninja, and he slowly, carefully laid the sitting man across his arm, so he could turn his chin upward and inspect his throat from the close.

'No out injections.' he stated after a moment of looking at how the skin twitched under the coughing. Then he simply laid his hand on the throat and caressed it down in a light stroke. That was so pleasant, to just have the man laying down across his torso like that, to breathe into his smell and to feel his vulnerable neck in front of everyone. Daichi was not an exhibitionist – more, he was actually a very closed person when it came to sexual themes – but it was oddly erotic, to touch that man in such way when everyone thought he was only checking him up. 'I see.' he said, for a moment almost too affectional, but he caught himself just in the nick of the time 'I know what is it. It's treatable. But quite dangerous.'

'Dangerous?' gasped someone, probably a rookie who didn't take it too well 'Oh no, Hokage-sama!'

'Not for him.' said Daichi, then smirked under his mask so visibly it actually showed through the material 'But for you. Such thing requires a strong antidote I can do right here and right now, but I need everyone who is not sick or immunized out of the room.'

'Then…' said one of the ANBU's, trying to see any hint of the answer on the blond's face '…then we can arrange the separate room and-'

'If you want him to die in-between then go ahead.' said Daichi simply and slowly let Minato lie down on the bed 'I cannot guarantee his life then, everyone bleeds just as much and just the same.'

Then he stood up and crossed his arms.

'But if I do it near him, the fumes will soften the effects of the poison. So, how would you like it to be?' After a moment the room was very, very empty, while Daichi delicately opened his set of a 'little poison master' to make it look like a big work, while he himself simply took out a black bead out his pocket and put it near Minato's mouth. 'It's bittersweet, but suck on it slowly.' He muttered as he held his head up carefully 'Unless you want your lungs to clamp down upon you. It will gradually pass away.'

And as he gave it to him, he gave him a quick kiss upon the temple with murmured 'sorry' as he went back to his little set of herbs to make something that could make fumes and would smell like a medicine. A syrup for burning blisters on the internal wounds sounded just about right.

Minato glared murder at him from under slightly bruised lids, not really protesting the treatment even though he was unusually tense under the redhead's touch when he'd normally just let the redhead do what he pleased if it meant stopping the annoying itch on his throat. He wasn't quite so certain when Daichi put the little slimy ball on his mouth, making a very childish face as he fought the urge to spit it out or just swallow it to get the horrible flavor off his mouth. That he was capable of eating almost anything remotely edible didn't mean he liked it so, and he hated the main herb used in this pill with all his soul.

When he'd been a genin lacking just about any sort of natural immunity children his age had, one of the things he'd caught the most was bronchitis, which had lead to pneumonia more than once. It usually went away the moment Tsunade turned around so Daichi sneaked to make him drink tea made of this horrible stuff. And by 'made' that usually meant bodily pin Minato to the bed while his teammate poured the stuff down his throat regardless of if the feverish blond felt like swallowing it or not. He had the feeling he had finally developed a more or less decent immunological system out of sheer hatred for the thing. And it didn't really help that Daichi's notion of 'sweet' was vastly different than the one Minato had of such a concept.

'Be careful with what you do.' he managed as he shifted the 'candy' around in his mouth. 'I brought a Hyuuga.' And if he knew the man one bat, he was spying on them under the anonymity of the mask. He just hoped the man would be too embarrassed by what he had just seen to try and discuss it with him. Sometime she was almost glad about how prim and proper the clan could be. Just in case, he raised a hand in a symbol that plainly meant 'Turn it off.'

'Couldn't help myself.' said the man simply as he mixed four different ingredients together. Slowly, the thing started seething out faint fumes smelling like a bunch of dates and herbs 'You look so bad that it wakes up my motherly instincts in me. Can you tell me what's happened?'

'That's a stupid question.' the blonde said flatly, no hint of the normal humor in his voice. Of course he couldn't. Technically, he wasn't supposed to even be friends with Daichi, but again, that was dodging the question. He made another hand gesture towards where he could faintly feel his jounin's chakra. 'I mean it, turn it off.'

Daichi sighed and left the potion on a small fire, letting it cook. Then he walked up to the door and opened it, meeting the jounin face to face.

'He told you to turn it off.' he muttered in an annoyed tone 'Then turn it off!' And with that he slammed the door behind him and walked up to his cooking experience once again.

'That's not a stupid question, Minato-kun.' he said as he started mixing the thing again 'You look worse than I remember you from our sparring and that says something. Is it about something connected to the new village?'

Minato moved the marble around his mouth, a faintly wet, if not particularly sexy sound coming from the thing as he coughed a bit more, controlled this time.

'I want to have my council replaced.' The blond said after a long pause, looking at the redhead from under his lashed, but not making any effort to approach him.

Daichi looked back with attentive gaze as the sound caught all of his attention. It sounded like something that he would like to hear in a more erotic context, though he couldn't say that this didn't give him a reason to breed out a few nice images. Finally, he returned to look at his potion that started to look like a green glue.

'So that's how it is.' he said in a tone that seemed to be just as stable as before 'That's a problematic thing indeed. What did the old one do?'

And they surely had to do something big if Minato was pushed up so far up his drive. He liked to think of himself like of someone of a harsh character, but he would rather get his throat bleeding from screaming than try to replace half of them. It always brought a little apocalypse in the training and knowing unknown secrets. He couldn't really think of a good enough reason.

'They tried to burn the village down?' That one sounded good 'Spied for the S-ranked criminals?'

Also good enough. He tapped the little spoon against his moth to feel the tingling and wiped it off immediately. It wouldn't be good for him to swallow it when he had no internal injuries. It still needed to burn more. He turned toward the blond.

'Tried to kill Naruto?' This one sounded even more believable. 'They've been doing that since he was born, Dai.' the blond said in the raspy new tone Daichi's little stunt had left him with, but even that wasn't enough to mask the pain and anger laced in the words that followed '…they killed Kushina.'

At that, the mixing of ingredients abruptly stopped. Daichi looked up, frowning. That wasn't something he knew about.

'What?'

'They killed Kushina.' the younger man repeated, the sentence drawing a grimace of him, as if it had had been physically painful to say it. 'They killed Kushina.' he said a third time, something odd on his voice that had nothing to do with tears or sobbing and all with Minato's mercurial temper.

'They didn't feel I was killing myself hard enough so they put my pregnant wife in a big red X in the middle of the Fox's path so I would have a better motivator-' he laughed at that, a short bark of sound scarcely less rough than when he'd been coughing. 'And I didn't get on time. I didn't even know until it was too late, but oh, they got what they wanted? And I… I lost everything. I forgot. I knew it then, but I still forgot, how can I do sort of thing?'

Of course he had forgotten, how else could he have lived. It was too easy not to wonder why the Sandaime had kept Naruto alive when it was obvious that the council wanted him dead just in case turned awry- as it turned out, guilt was a lot more potent Sarutobi than in the 0other three. A desperate, sharp intake of breath. Of course it had been easy. That's what he had been raised for, forgetting and moving on, forgetting for the sake of living.

'I lost it. Everything. I lost Kushina and I lost Naruto and I didn't care about anything anymore, so I called him- Him, when I always, always promised- I knew what would happen! I didn't even care- and He came, and I gave him my life. I gave him- I told him he could take anything he wanted, but he didn't take it because it wasn't right, because it was all a mess. Kushina was the sacrifice not me. They messed up everything, I wasn't supposed to survive. They messed everything, and they will pay.'

The last venomously spat, lips twitching into a grimace between a deranged grin and a growl.

'He will have me for lying to Him, but they will pay for what they've done.' Because Minato was cruel. Like the Death God, like the Fox, he was petty and unforgiving, but above it all, he was patient. All he had left was time now, he could pretend for a while he had never learnt of this, but deep down he'd know everything had changed. He would never be able to trust Sarutobi again, and he wouldn't let the other three go unpunished. He wouldn't allow it either way. Nothing displeased a God more than an unwilling sacrifice.

But nothing would give him back what he'd lost. He didn't have a home anymore, only a prison he wouldn't be able to escape. Because he had run out of options. Because he was trapped by the Village by chains he wouldn't' dare to break.

'They ruined everything I had. I should have never followed Him to Konoha. I- I should have never left the mountains, Ari-Nee was right, but… I couldn't live there, I couldn't live alone all my life, what else was I supposed to do? Humans weren't meant- They might be able to live, but they can't be alone. And now I'm not alone, but I'm still trapped. I'm trapped. I'm trapped. I can't do anything. I can't go anywhere. He trapped me here, I'm just a toy, and He'll eat me in the end. He'll eat me.'

'What are you talking about?' finally the redhead burst, interrupting the paranoid chanting. He could barely understand what this all meant, but if he heard correctly, even half of it was hard to comprehend. It turned the world 180 and one more degrees. But the last words, he could not stand. 'Stupid! Nobody is going to eat you! Do you value everyone so little?'

And with that he grabbed the man by arms and shook him hard, once twice. And after that, he hugged him in a tight protective hug – light enough to take pity on his bones but hard enough to not let him get out of it.

'You egoist! You think that everyone around would let you fall down like that? That your son would let you be eaten? That I would let such thing happen? Stop talking nonsense!'

Because even if it was somewhat illogical and somewhat unnatural, it was indeed scary and unnerving; it wasn't impossible and he had all right to doubt that if the Demon Fox or the God of Death (stupid! Stupid Minato, what he was thinking, calling such thing upon himself alone? If he only knew he would get out such ideas out of his mind! Why didn't he say anything?) came back to actually do anything that even the whole four of the kages would do anything against them. He couldn't believe that the council would do such a thing. Didn't they love the blonde? He thought everyone admired the man in his own village. How little did he know actually!... And Kushina…

Even in his state of mind he felt the aghast emotion growing. She was no one and she was annoying and she was a bitch, but then she was anything and a princess of a sister he never had. It was just unfortunate, all of that… He turned the knuckles of one of his palm into fist.

'What you shouldn't have done was keeping that in secret.' he muttered and stroked the blond hair, watching them moving under his fingers 'I will help you in this. As much as I can.'

And he really would. That's why he was there for his whole life, right? Adoration contained also such duties along the care and memory. He frowned lightly about the mentioned 'Ari-Nee' which was something completely new, but he decided to hold his lips shut about it. It seemed like a sore spot, especially as the man seemed to just snap out of partial amnesia. Which just sucked when it came out what it hid.

'You're not trapped.' he muttered and cradled the man in a gentle cuddle 'I'm here for you. I will protect you.'

'He'll eat me. He's marked me already.' the blond said apathetically, letting the redhead hold him forcefully without trying to shrug it off. Minato wanted this, desperately wanted to be told this things and believe even for a few seconds there was a way out of it, but he'd been taught too well for it. 'I should have died. I should be dead.' And if he wasn't, it was because there had been a breach on the deal, and for that he would be punished. Out of a deal with a God, he had been gifted with a son to love and he had been granted a life that was just wrong. And Daichi couldn't help him. No one could help him now, there was no way he could run out of Konoha, not lie when he'd run out his first home.

'No, Minato.' said the redhead and looked down at him with a frown. It was painful to hear that he had such thoughts; it wasn't right for him to be that way. He had all reasons on the world to live. 'You should live. For the sake of your son if not for everything else. Do you think Kushina would be happy if she knew what you're thinking? She died so you wouldn't have to die. Don't belittle her sacrifice.'

The blond remained silent and limp on the other's grip. When he reacted after almost a full minute of silence, it would be hard to determine who was the most surprised by the action.

'Don't you get it?' Minato suddenly pushed against the redhead, violently enough to pry the man's arms off himself. One fisted on his shirt and a little to the rest, clutching the front of his own shirt in a vicious grip that threatened to break apart the silver necklace still sporting the missing link. 'You've seen this, haven't you? Did you see what it did to me? I was dying! I should have died, do you know- do you have an idea of how much poison it put on me? *You* know!'

He couldn't hold back the accusation- yes, Daichi would know. Because the only person he knew with more experience on poison and what it could do to a human that Daichi was Chiyo. Tsunade might have an almost visceral understanding on how to treat them, but what they could do? Professional poison-masters couldn't be topped on that aspect.

'You know! So don't come tell me everything is fine, It changed me, and I don't know why-' he suddenly chocked, as if he had meant to say something else he had swallowed the words, the next ones he uttered down to a harsh whisper. 'How old would you say I am? Do I look my age to you? My blood changed- it doesn't even taste the same, I noticed. I can eat fucking strawberries, Daichi.'

And that might sound so utterly stupid and ridiculous, if it weren't for the fact that Minato had always been mortally allergic to those. It was bad enough he'd actually gone into anaphylactic shock during a mission after biting a kunoichi vain enough to favor strawberry body butter. Daichi had only looked at him, and his frown slowly deepened.

'It's not fine.' he stated calmly. If that was what blond wanted to hear, then it was fine with him. He was sure it wasn't the right path to go, but he was the one who chose the truth and not the soothing. He calmly looked at the blonde and slowly pointed his finger at his chest, touching the material and the skin through it lightly. 'That amount of poisonous chakra is not something much bigger than you could survive. You should have been dead the moment half of it got into your blood stream and your bones should have been burned to ashes, and ashes into nothing.'

He breathed in and out and moved the finger down, slowly touching the harsh skin through it until he felt the beginning on normal one, way beyond the breast plates.

'You say it's a curse.' he muttered, and then he looked back at the man and his flustered features 'Did you ever thought about how blessed you are? I mean – you can even eat fucking strawberries.' He smiled a bit ironically at that, but it was true at some point. 'If you want to know my opinion, there's a very simple fact about poisons.' he muttered and moved his hand even lower, until he could touch the brim of the shirt, and then, he slowly rose it up, revealing the damaged skin 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And if that didn't kill you…'

At those words he once again pointed his finger at the scar, touching only the skin this time.

'…then your age means you haven't been born yet. In my humble way of seeing this, you will have way above three hundredths of years to worry about your life.' And it was a bit saddening, because the longer you lived, the more you lost. He wanted to be by his side, but he doubted he would match even half of that time and if Naruto will also. But he knew he would try. 'You're blessed.'

Those words made the light smile on the red-haired man's lips widen ever so lightly. It still wasn't a response of the romantic, safe kind, where on every 'love you' was whispered 'love too' with thousand of kisses following, but heck, that was a freaking life and he expected nonetheless. Or rather – he didn't know what he had expected. For the first half of his life he expected to be laughed at or maybe having some bones broken in return as he knew that he wouldn't just stand simple refusal and would sooner or later lower himself so much he would beg for acceptance. And everything about this idea was sad, painful and totally hilarious, in that wrong, pitiful way.

Then he stopped thinking about saying anything at all. And now? Now he simply stood his ground and everything that had to be said was already said, so what really could have been expected here? He closed his eyes for a moment, delighted with the hold that was put on him, even if it seemed to be lacking firmness. For real? Nothing. He didn't expect anything. He just went with the flow. And it seemed to be right, so… He opened his eyes.

'I just wanted you to know.' he murmured, then pulled the man into a hug himself. It felt good, to move his hands around the warm body and feel its presence, its curves and its strength and weakness. He loved this form. The sound his hands made when he slowly moved them up from the waist to the shoulder blades was a pleasure itself. For a moment it felt like if doing that was the best thing he could ever do and he didn't want it to stop. He smiled again, finally stopping his hands and moving them down to waist again. 'So don't forget, okay?'

The blond couldn't help squirming a bit and leaning more into the hole at the way the other touched him, sort of ticklish in a not really annoying way, more like nice, nodding at what the older man said, and yet… This felt a little too real and a little too overwhelming, and despite his best efforts he couldn't help the feeling of happiness.

The redhead's words brought a real, if slightly panicked small laugh from the blonde, his body automatically trying to jerk away from the close touch before he could actually bring himself to stop trying to squirm away from the touch. Blessed. He was blessed. People like us are blessed, Minato. Strawberries or hearts or roses wouldn't made a difference, only they did, and he hadn't been warned so. All humans may speak to Gods, but only we are the ones who know what to do to get answers. Only he hadn't understood that didn't mean they would be the ones they had asked for. Prices and sacrifices. Regardless of what Daichi might think about his situation, he worried, and he worried now. It was always 'now' for him- dream now, fight now, love now, want now.

And he wanted to run away. Only he couldn't, because Konoha was the only home Naruto had and he could try to run away, he could get out and they wouldn't ever find them. Only they would try. Only if he did, his son would lose the only friends he had in the world and be forced to become a fugitive and a missing nin. Konoha might want the Kyuubi's vessel eliminated, but it sure as hell wouldn't risk letting another village get a hold of it. Naruto would never had a chance at a normal life, he'd force his son go through the same thing he himself had suffered as a child, and he couldn't do that.

Only if they did go, he didn't know what he would do about Kakashi, because he didn't know if Kakashi would leave the village with them. His father had been branded a traitor and he had suffered for years of ostracism and whispers behind his back that survived even into this day despite how hard he'd fought to clean his family's name and reputation. He wouldn't because he now had Sasuke to take care of, and he'd never leave the young Uchiha behind, not when the risk of Itachi coming back to 'finish the job'. He couldn't tell him that would never happen because that would put him in a risk- but if he were to leave without Kakashi, he'd have to kill him.

As the closest nin to them, the one dispatched to track them and find them would be Kakashi. The one with the actual biggest chance would be the white head, so he would have to eliminate him, and he couldn't do that. He loved Kakashi in this fierce, protective way that wouldn't let him hurt him or leave the village and betray him.

And even if he were to leave, where would he go? Thunder would only be too glad to get rid of him. No other nation would hide him without demanding something in payment. If he were to leave, he could always run to Suna, Daichi would do anything in his power to protect him, no matter what it took.

Only he couldn't do that to Daichi either. The moment he became a fugitive, Daichi would be demoted from his position as a Kazekage, he didn't have a doubt about it. Because he'd been stupid enough to think he could help when in reality he was only tying a noose around his own neck- By tying the control of Suna's Bijuu to Daichi and Daichi's control of it to himself, he'd turned the redhead into a liability. Even if the seals would only be turned off, how would Suna allow their leader to be someone whose control of their greatest weapon depended on a Missing nin? Chiyo would talk, regardless of how much she loved Daichi, her loyalty to her country would come first.

And that would ruin Daichi. He'd been born and raised for this position, and Minato wouldn't, couldn't stand between that. He would never dare to put himself in a position where there might be a chance of him being on the losing end of a choice. Just like Jiraiya, who might love Minato, but never dream of putting him above his Village. Jiraiya would turn against him if that's what it took to preserve peace, and that was something Minato couldn't bear to even think about it. Not even the actual fighting his sensei, but just thinking Jiraiya would be willing to eliminate him. He had nowhere to go.

'I guess. Strawberries are awesome.'

The redhead had only smiled at that, finally losing his frown.

'And don't you ever doubt about that.' he said, lightly stroking Minato's cheek, only to lean into the slow reassuring kiss. The man looked saddened, and he hoped that if anything, he could lift his mood a bit by that. He slowly swallowed, and stopped when he felt the candy taste in his mouth. 'That's not fair.' he muttered as he backed off a bit, feeling the medicine on his tongue 'Come here.' with that he kissed him again and gave him back the candy.

'Eat it till the end.' he said and stroked the man's hair for a moment. Then he got up and leaned over his chemical set again, getting back to the forgotten potion that seemed to have hardened at the neglect. After adding the water it became gluey again. 'And after that… I still remember what have you written to me in your letter.'

That was the furthest thing from Minato's mind at the moment, so it wasn't entirely surprising that for several seconds he just stared at the redhead's back without having a clue about what the other was talking about. It was very noticeable when he did, because he choked on the candy on his mouth, having to actually spit the thing out to get over the new round of coughing that immediately ensued.

'W-hat letter?' he asked when he managed to get back under control, placing the sticky and rather unappetizing candy back into his mouth, then licking his palm to lick the gooey residue off it. 'The one where I ask you if you remember the definition of 'maybe'?'

The man had only smiled under his nose, not for a moment stopping his doings.

'Maybe.'

'You suck.'

The man's smile had only widened as he rose up his stare to look at the blond. 'I believe it's other way around.' he said smoothly and added another spoon of the grey colored dust.

Minato smiled a bit, leaning back into the bed and just enjoying the fact Daichi was there for him again. It made worth the fact he'd walked right into that one.

The redhead continued on making the potion until he felt the burn on his lower lip being hard enough to mistake it with the pain. The best medicines tasted the worst after all. Through the whole process of mixing ingredients till the last moment of turning the heater off so the silver fumes wouldn't make the air completely fogged, he observed the man on the bed. He was beautiful, the picture of his love and desire. He loved how the hair just curled upon his ears and how the clothes laid on his chest, so nicely accenting the shape of his muscles and sometimes masking them. He missed seeing him, his image of a breathing relaxed form.

He wanted to take him to his home so much. It was so bad he couldn't. He would simply shower him with attention so much it wouldn't last for the rest of the world. Here, they couldn't even go to have a nice dinner together as summit was a strict meeting held under harsh laws. The fact they were alone in the same room was an exception alone. Too good. Too bad.

'Hey.' he muttered as he slowly got back from his ended work. 'Give me some space here. I want to rest after my job.'

Minato's reaction was automatic- he scrambled up and curled on one side of the bed, leaving enough space for the redhead. It was only when he noticed what he had done that he smiled, something warm and maybe a little embarrassed on his face. As a teen, it had always been a variation of that sentence, Daichi telling him to move so he'd have room when they shared the redhead's bed, back when Daichi still had to share his room with his other teammates and Minato slept four nights out of seven with the Suna team simply because he preferred Daichi's company to his teammates snores.

Or more accurately, simply because he preferred the redhead.

'Why do you keep wearing these stupid masks?' Gently, he reached for the fabric hanging around the redhead's neck, feeling the silky texture wit curiosity. Maybe he couldn't run away, but at least like this, Daichi would still be happy and he could still have the redhead. Minato wasn't sure he would be able to handle the idea of not seeing the other like this.

'Ah… hey, hey, hey, don't touch that!' says Daichi, immediately catching his fingers after they've fumbled with the material. Now look at this – the faint blue-yellow taint only shows that he already mixed both potion for coughing and the paralyzing venom extracted from the desert snakes. As the first one doesn't make a difference where it is unless it touches the mouth, the second can be very much life threatening if not removed within few seconds. 'Hold still.' Its good he had only opened his medical set, so all materials are wet from using. It's only a moment before the fingers are clear again, but he wipes them very carefully, just to be sure. He can't make the man lose his hand because of something irresponsible.

'There.' he mutters as he sniffs up the digits 'Now it's good. Please, don't touch this if you don't want to be in mortal danger.' But just in case, he takes it off. When laying, it brushes slightly against the skin, and even if he is immune to the most now, it's always be better safe than sorry.

Minato stared back at his fingers in surprise, as if wondering where the color came from, and just as the one coated in blue started to twinge a little uncomfortably and go numb, the redhead yanked him forward by it and started lathering it on something that looked vaguely like mustard and was unfortunately immensely less pleasant to the touch.

'Is… is that… poison?' he asked through squinted eyes, taking shallow breaths to keep the worst of the fumes from whatever the redhead had been playing with in his chemistry set 'You kept po- why do you keep poison near your mouth? Are you nuts?'

Stupid question, of course he was nuts, this was Daichi they were talking about. Maybe it was the fact they started giving their babies such dangerous substances before they weaned them from milk or maybe it just ran in the bloodline, but all Sunanins he knew were certifiably insane.

'And you kissed me! Are you nuts?' he said in a hiss, grabbing the man by the shoulder and giving him a rough shake, just like when they were in a team and either of his redheads did something he didn't agree with. 'I could have died horribly!'

'Every ninja has its secrets.' says the redhead stoically as he folds the cloth away, only to be shaken roughly back. Now there was the old Minato panicking now. It felt kind of reminescencing, but they're not a leader and a rookie, but kages at the same level so he doesn't bow down his head nor he says he is sorry. He has nothing to be sorry about his lips are clear, he knows it – he wiped them at least ten times when he made the potion for internal blisters, but it seems that it somehow got away from Minato's attention. But if that's how it is, he can as well play along.

In one of his pockets there's a black lip balm, the kind of that makes you look worse than death once you put it on. One of his standard ones he always used to use, but not so often now. He applies it just right in front of Minato, looking at him cockily, with perfection nearing the one hundredth and three percent even if there's no mirror to look at. And then, he simply leans forward and kisses Minato with tongue, kisses him long and hard, until the taste of black currant doesn't mingle with the taste of the bittersweet candy and his morning tea, until not only his mouth, but also Minato's lips, their teeth and tongues are inked back, grey and purple, flushed and hot. That's how he likes it.

'You couldn't have died horribly.' he says as he moves away to close the lip balm into his pocket again 'Because if I wanted you to, you'd be already dying. For example, from my lip balm.' and he smiles, sweetly and cockily. 'I hope this death sentence agrees with your taste.'

The blond just gave him an uneasy look, eyes following the movement attentively- he didn't think he had ever outgrew liking to watch the other doing this sort of thing, working on his puppets, practicing calligraphy on those special scrolls, preparing his kunai so they'd be adequately embedded in poison, putting on makeup (forgive him, war paint)... It's not that he didn't trust Daichi with poisons, it's just that after years of being next to the redhead, Minato had kind of developed the slight paranoia someday the older man would just forget not everyone came equipped with natural immunity to most poisons.

He knows the redhead's lips were clean, he'd be dead otherwise already, but the idea of the redhead with something like that so close to his mouth also upsets him. Daichi might be able to take something as aggressive as diluted bijuu's blood without his skin melting off, but poison I still poison and another thing he was positive he would never outgrow is worrying over the older man, needlessly or not.

When the older man leant closer with less than subtle intentions, Minato thought of maybe dodging, or playing a bit, doing or saying something to frustrate the older man and have him be a bit more violent, but oddly enough for himself, he didn't quite feel like it. Maybe he was still a bit shaken by everything that had happened and maybe he really wanted (needed) to just sit there and see what the redhead would do to him.

The kiss is harsh and demanding, vaguely dirty and surprisingly satisfying. Not that the one before hadn't been, but this is more like what he wants right now so right now it's better, which makes a lot or sense (or very little, depending on the perspective). His lips feel greasy and he wipes at his lips with his sleeve, not at all surprised when it comes out smudged in black -and really, he will never figure out how puppeteers manage to drink, eat or simply function with that thick make up and not stain anything under the sun)-

He smiled back at the redhead, amused and affectionate as he pushed the redhead back into bed, and he's on top of the shorter man almost before the other hits the mattress.

'…this better wash off with water, Dai.' The tone was soft and affectionate, but the kiss he gave the other right after wasn't anything very different from the way the redhead had kissed him. Only Minato had the nice idea of sneaking a hand under the redhead's pants to give him a purposely messy and playful squeeze.

And that surprised Daichi. Not much, not as much as it would surprise a youngster and not as much as it would surprise an inexpecting and longing teenager in love he once was – it was hard to surprise a ninja of his age and experience. If anything, it was a mild confusion that made him fall on his back and push lightly at the shoulders that hanged above him as supporting bridges for the body. That was an act of pure instinct – as brief as his confusion.

'It washes off-' he murmured between one gasp in the kiss to another '-only with dust-' when their teeth clanked and their lips smacked '-what kind of wasteful person-' and it felt good, so good and sweet, a feeling he didn't think he'd be able to endure in this life at all '-are you-' And the rest drowned in a deep rumble in his chest as the blond decided to show affection to lower parts of his body. Surely, his bodily memory remembered well what goods had happened to it before, in the dark of the night. Somehow, it was not a scream, but somehow it was also not a whisper. He knew that people on the other side of the door had to rise their heads and ears, because for a ninja there was never a noise that was too quiet to not be interested in.

He knew he should care about that, he knew he should have, but then, he really didn't want to.

'Minato-kun.' he muttered at the thin line between the kiss ending and endorsing into another one and then he grabbed the man like a drowning man caught anything, addicted, drunk and wanting more. He missed him in his life so much. He missed his face (which he kissed up, ravished in a heat as his hold tightened and his arms moved upward, pushing at the man, turning them upside down) his stare (if he could he'd steal this gaze and tape it on the walls to never leave the room again) his smell ('You are- I am- Oh, gods' and his neck tasted of sweat and everything that he wanted) and the need to be needed in his gestures, his posture, his being.

He wanted to own him. In his deepest pocket of his heart.

'Like this.' he murmured, moving the hand out of his pants and reopening the shirt and kissing up the skin that contained the necklace, licking around it, licking it-

'Kazekage-sama.'

'Go away, Baki.' he muttered, freezing in annoyance, feeling disturbance, anger, embarrassment.

'No, Kazekage-sama. The ANBUs will enter the room any minute now. Please, step aside.' No. 'Kazekage-sama.'

'No…' he murmured and laid his head down, feeling the necklace on his forehead and the material under his hands. But it wasn't long after he got up and pushed the man off the bed, already suiting his suit, straightening his hair, paling his skin. He managed to give a quick nip at the collarbone before that though.

'Hokage-sama?' said Shikaku after the door opened not a few seconds later.

'He is all right.' said Daichi, not feeling very all right on his own. 'Tell Mifune we will continue the meeting in another set of minutes. Now excuse me.' And with that, he went out, leaving the man on his own with his crowd to handle. Minato hadn't meant for things to go very far, just one little grope for the sake of groping itself, but the noise Daichi made in response –not a purr or a groan, but something perfectly balanced in between – had made him stop and then continue because he had never heard the redhead do that sort of noise before in his life, ever. It was almost as pleasant as that helpless little whimper when he touched the base of his column or his nape over that messed up scar.

There wasn't much decision on his part to be made, though. Daichi had grabbed him and started stripping, and the coherent part of his mind politely cleared its throat and reminded him this was an interlude of counted minutes and that the leaders of three other nations (not counting Mifune) were waiting for his return, and that without considering the fact in the hypothetical case that Daichi had managed to cower Hizashi into turning the byakugan off, chances it remained that way were very low and lowering the longer they stayed in there.

His libido kind of blinked at it blankly before bashing its head in with a club. Tsunade-sensei as right after all. Men only had enough blood in their bodies to think with one of their heads, two at the same time would be asking too much of evolution.

The next thing he knew was that Baki was talking from somewhere and that Daichi had at some point managed to get most of his shirt off without him even seeming to realize. It didn't speak well of his shinobi abilities, sensei would be appalled if he knew- not that Minato was going to tell. And even if he did, he would probably be more appalled at his choice of partner, so he was provably over thinking it. At any rate, the redhead's frustrated expression bordered on pouty, and if he hadn't pushed him off bed, Minato might have felt a bit sorry about him. Maybe.

At any rate, he managed to settle himself enough that by the time his ANBU decided to remember what their main duty was about, his shirt was back in normal and he was wiping at his mouth with an appropriately sickened expression, glaring daggers at the retreating redhead.

'Oh hey, thanks for coming back when he was almost done with chocking me to death.' he said, turning to give a sullen look at the other males and female. His mouth was reddish, but practically all of the black paste was gone, mostly having ended up on his sleeve.

At those words some ANBU moved a bit nervously which could mean that he either hit a nerve or that they paled to the third shade of white and questioned their whole career as an ANBU. Which looked exactly the same.

'Are you all right, Hokage-sama?' finally one with a bird mask dared to ask. Asking such a question as 'really, he was?' was a bit too much and everyone knew it.

'Of course I'm not, do you know bad this thing tastes?' he showed them the stained sleeve, using the other one to wipe at his mouth some more, even if he could tell by the feeling it was already pretty red. At least it wouldn't show he had been kissing. The woman moved a bit restlessly, he tone curious when she dared to talk again.

'The medicine?'

'The torture.' Minato sniffed, as if the difference had only been too obvious. 'Bastard sat on me poured that thing down my throat. Do you know how much he weights? More than he looks, I tell you.'

The ANBUs once again shifted a bit, this time obviously from laughter. Only the Hyuuga seemed to look prettily unconvinced, for some strange unexplained reason.

'But you seem to be much better, Hokage-sama.' he finally said, not looking also very happy. ANBUs also nodded to that. A bit, to pretend in case if it was a bad answer, that they didn't.

'Well, the cough's gone, but that's no excuse.' he massaged his neck a little, finally pushing himself up with a bit of effort 'You know why he always was so nice to me at the academy? So he could use me for guinea pig for that paste he wanted me to swallow.'

'You can't really expect medicine to taste like candy.'

'They don't even have to be so disgusting, he just makes them that way! On purpose. Because he knows I hate bitter things.'

'Men are such babies…'

'I tasted like propylene and plastic currants decided to blend and make tar.' he said, pointing at the stuff the redhead had left smoking on the little fire. One look also showed he had left his mini kitchen for little poisoners in there. 'And it sticks to your throat.' The cougar mask stared at him in impressive silence. 'Go on, have some. I dare you.'

The silence emerged as people around the cougar mask decided to not to stand out on the given task. Who knew how such thing could taste after all? And they weren't sick, so…

'Ho-Hokage-sama.' spoke one of the ANBUs finally as the man was painfully slowly bending over for a drink 'I wanted to inform you that the meeting is restarting and they're waiting for your presence in the main room.'

'Right… just let me wash my face… Hawk, get me a clean shirt, please. I can't go back smelling like burnt sugar cane from hell. Deer, Cougar, do me a favor and open a window before we suffocate.' It took him a minute or two to compose himself, even if the area around his mouth looked a little too red and he generally looked like crap because magic for curing poison-induced pneumonia or not, Daichi's antidote wasn't going to make the stress and lack of sleep of the pasty months go away. But at least he *felt* better. Mostly because he couldn't remember much of whatever he had told the redhead, only that Daichi had said he shouldn't worry too much about it, and that made perfect sense for Minato.

He wasn't going to think about it or make himself questions until he absolutely had to. And speaking of questions… There was a knock on the door, Minato taking a steadying breath and closing the faucet before calling the man in. The ANBU with the hawk mask quickly walking in with the new shirt.

'Thank you.' he smiled at the other man, taking the shirt and putting it on, his movements a lot slower than usual as he fussed with the Chinese fastenings on front 'Is there anything you'd like to say, Hizashi-san?'

The Hyuuga had only looked back at him with his usual expression, though if anything, there was still a hint of disbelief and sour hidden in the corner of his lips.

'I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to say.' he stated simply and turned his head sideways, avoiding the direct eye contact, beside the fact he still saw everything around his head.

'I would say when one's Hokage signs you to stop snooping, it's as good a time as any to actually obey.' the younger man said with a small smile. 'Sometimes they are doing it for the good of their poor guard's psyche.'

'My duty is to think of your safety despite anything you might or might not say, Hokage-sama.' said Hyuuga, taking the proud stance 'I'm not ashamed of my duty, because I do not have anything to be ashamed of._' …unlike some_ – hanged in the thin air like fumes.

'As expecting of the best shinobi from Hyuuga.' the blond said, the sentence sounding sincerely like a compliment while internally he was just amused they were so proud of what basically came down to snooping. 'Thank you for taking care of me.'

'I guess it's better this way.' Minato finished with the shirt, letting the silence settle for a moment while he inspected his face- yep, still looking like he was in the early stages of some plague. 'Not because I wouldn't want to lie to you, it just would be kind of hard. Then again, I did choose you for this mission specifically, so I provably…' The blond trailed off, feeling around under his shirt for his necklace until he finally pulled it out leaving it on sight. There, better.

He finally turned around, leaning on the basin as he stared at the older man.

'I trust you, Hizashi-san. I think you know that by now.'

Hizashi had only stood in silence, looking in front of himself like a soldier.

'I don't know what are you talking about Hokage-sama.' He spoke curtly.

'No? Don't play dumb with me, I'm not your council.' the younger man said, as good natured as ever. 'I trusted you and your brother with the most important thing in my life three years ago, and you have never made me regret it.' Neji and Hinata had been the best thing that had ever happened to Minato, not because they were well bred and high class, but simply because they were loyal to a fault and they loved Naruto. Even if there had been a war, that alone would have been enough to make Minato step in between the negotiations between Cloud and Hyuuga before they were stupid enough to send this man to get killed. He hadn't known back then, but as usual, things around him had away to work and entwine themselves, paths crossing and (trapping) canceling each other out.

'I'm trusting you with this too. Can I?'

The man didn't meet his eye on that one, but observed him closely. It was true he owed a lot to this man and without him his life would be pretty much over by now. He was still after the slight shock of what he observed so he couldn't really be sure if he did the right thing. Nevertheless, he nodded.

'Sir, yes sir.' he said out loud. Personally, he was still confused.

The blond smiled, honestly relieved. Hyuuga could be haughty, but they wouldn't go back on their word or lie- that would be dishonorable a thing to do. Minato was honestly relieved by this, because if Hizashi had disagreed, he wouldn't have had any other options than to threaten him, and when one wanted to make a man sweat, the first targets were his immediate family. Minato would honestly hate himself if he had had to hurt Hotaru-san. And Neji… it was better not to think how that would hurt Naruto.

'Thank you.' and with that out of the way 'We better go back before Cougar needs to have his stomach pumped. We need to finish this meeting so we can get back home.'

Hizashi let go of a small breath. So he chose well after all.

'Yes, Hokage-sama. Preparations will begin shortly.' Finally, he was going to be back to the place where everything ran the usual way. In a matter of minutes the blond was back, not that anyone seemed to have missed him- Daichi and the Mizukage were still threading thinly veiled jabs at each other and Raikage apparently wasn't as attached to Minato as the blonde obviously was, because in his absence he seemed to think the Tsuchikage was as good a replacement as any and if the scorched crack on that side of the table was any clue, the two older men had already come close to blows.

He walked to Mifune, quietly apologizing to him (he sure as hell wasn't going to apologize to anyone else) and on his way back, stopped long enough to drop Daichi's bag of poisons on Baki's hand.

'Please tell Kazekage-sama that next time he can get his stuff down his own goddamned throat.' he said smiling sunnily at the Sunanin, knowing that Baki was probably going to be horrified by the double meaning, but Minato wasn't going to shy from it. If he couldn't traumatize his own jounin, he was going to traumatize Daichi's out of pure pettiness.

He wasn't sure if Daichi had bothered to teach Baki what the code team Red has used for their missions was, but either way, it didn't matter. The note and the seal hidden in the pouch weren't meant for him in the first place, but he made sure he knew it was there all the same.

'I'm back.' he finally said as he resumed his seat, for all means acting as if he had gone out to pick a coffee instead of nearly having coughed a lung out not a full hour ago. 'Where were we?'

The mediator smiled lightly at him and clapped lightly his hands to get attention to him.

'We're glad we can see you in good health again, Hokage-sama.' he said, while Baki did his best to not look horrified. With half of his face he was partially successful. 'Now, let's go back to the main track of the meeting…'

And thus, the meeting continued. Daichi mainly kept on dodging polite venoms coming from the Mizukage who tried to stand on his weak points by accidentally spilling out water from their teas which he treated like 'nothing', but he couldn't shake much. Basically he was left with feeling of dissatisfaction and longing and couldn't help but look at the blonde man on the other side of the table everytime he did not focus his eyes.

He was not sure if he wasn't caught on it, but then, everyone knew how 'close' they used to be, so he didn't try to care much. After four long hours, the meeting had finally been announced as ended, without much of a change to the political arena (with sand staying in the Water Country too). The redhead got up with a feeling of wasted time. Why was this meeting even made? He couldn't do anything with such connections and h couldn't even smooch the man properly. It all went wrong.

'Kazekage-sama.' he looked back at Baki with distaste, but accepted his potions without a word. Only when a note was passed to him too, his eyes twinkled a bit more brighter.

'You're a good soldier.' he said and Baki grimaced like if he had been just offended. Which wasn't very far from the truth – in such matters, he would rather still stay oblivious. After a short goodbye – or rather, the lack of it as the setting out was a top secret information guarded before any possible attacks, his carriage slowly moved out to his national home. The snow snowed through the way and the vision was cold and blurred, but the redhead kept a content smile on his face as he kept on staring at his personal treasure now. It felt like a wish from a genie and boy, he was going to use it.

And when he was ready, he caught the shuriken and let it jab the floor near his feet with such precision he could feel the woosh of the air on the straight line.


End file.
